Study for salt tolerance using CAPS markers in key DNA regulation se-quences in durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum) as new alternative

Abstract

In arid and semi-arid regions, particularly around the Mediterranean basin, soil salinization is one of the abiotic factors that reduces the agricultural yield of several crops and especially the cereal species. Molecular genetics, as an alternative method, makes it possible to select eligible plants for desi-rable traits at an earlier age. Selection based on markers such as CAPS (cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence) can lead to increased accuracy and selection responses in plants. A simple method for detecting polymor-phism of the WRKY candidate gene was performed on nine varieties of du-rum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum) for the identification of tolerant varieties. The DNA was amplified with a pair of primers, and digested with a restriction endonuclease that recognizes the SNP sequence. The electropho-retic analysis revealed the amplification of 7 bands of different sizes per pro-file in all individuals tested. The analysis of profiles after digestion shows that out of a total of seven bands, five bands do not change size. While, the two fast bands of 130 and 144 bp disappear and two other bands of 122 and 118 bp appear only after digestion, in all individuals studied. In our work, we were unable to demonstrate restriction variation in the DNA binding domain sequences of the transcription factor WRKY1, On the other hand, we show that the CAPS technique can be an easily used alternative, for the detection of variation in key DNA sequences, such as those of the transcription factor binding domains or their cis-acting elements sequences.