Abstract
Low-molecular-weight glutenin subunits (LMW-GSs) play an important role in determining the bread-making quality of bread wheat. However, LMW-GSs display high polymorphic protein complexes encoded by multiple genes, and elucidating the complex LMW-GS gene family in bread wheat remains challenging. In the present study, using conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with conserved primers and high-resolution capillary electrophoresis, we developed a new molecular marker system for identifying LMW-GS gene family members. Based on sequence alignment of 13 LMW-GS genes previously identified in the Chinese bread wheat variety Xiaoyan 54 and other genes available in GenBank, PCR primers were developed and assigned to conserved sequences spanning the length polymorphism regions of LMW-GS genes. After PCR amplification, 17 DNA fragments in Xiaoyan 54 were detected using capillary electrophoresis. In total, 13 fragments were identical to previously identified LMW-GS genes, and the other 4 were derived from unique LMW-GS genes by sequencing. This marker system was also used to identify LMW-GS genes in Chinese Spring and its group 1 nulli-tetrasomic lines. Among the 17 detected DNA fragments, 4 were located on chromosome 1A, 5 on 1B, and 8 on 1D. The results suggest that this marker system is useful for large-scale identification of LMW-GS genes in bread wheat varieties, and for the selection of desirable LMW-GS genes to improve the bread-making quality in wheat molecular breeding programmes.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1503-1516 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Theoretical and Applied Genetics |
Volume | 122 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 2011 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Drs Xianchun Xia (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China) and Xiuqiang Huang (University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada) for constructive suggestions on this work. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2009CB118300 and 2006AA10Z1B2) and the Ministry of Agriculture of China for transgenic research (2008ZX08009-003 and 2008ZX08002-004).