The origin of modern wheats involved alloploidization among related genomes. To determine if Aegilops speltoides was the donor of the B and G genomes in AABB and AAGG tetraploids, we used a 3-tiered approach. Using 70 amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) loci, we sampled molecular diversity among 480 wheat lines from their natural habitats encompassing all S genome Aegilops, the putati...

Background and Aims Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) has been through a severe genetic bottleneck as a result of its evolution and domestication. It is therefore essential that new sources of genetic variation are generated and utilized. This study aimed to generate genome-wide introgressed segments from Aegilops speltoides. Introgressions generated from this research will be made available for ...

Restriction map variation in two 5-6-kb chloroplast DNA regions of five diploid Aegilops species in the section Sitopsis and two wild tetraploid wheats, Triticum dicoccoides and Triticum araraticum, was investigated with a battery of four-cutter restriction enzymes. A single accession each of Triticum durum, Triticum timopheevi and Triticum aestivum was included as a reference. More than 250 re...

The second largest BamHI fragment (B2) of the chloroplast DNA in Triticum (wheat) and Aegilops contains a highly variable region (a hotspot), resulting in four types of B2 of different size, i.e. B2l (10.5kb), B2m (10.2kb), B2 (9.6kb) and B2s (9.4kb). In order to gain a better understanding of the molecular nature of the variations in length and explain unexpected identity among B2 of Ae. ovata...

Five accessions of Aegilops speltoides and 67 European wheat cultivars (winter and spring) originating from the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, United Kingdom, and 4 non-European wheat cultivars from Brazil and the USA were examined with molecular Sequence Tagged Site (STS) markers for resistance genes to powdery mildew: Pm 1, Pm 2, Pm 3 and Pm 13. All markers gave clear, rep...

Protein disulphide isomerase (PDI) is an oxidoreductase enzyme abundant in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). In plants, PDIs have been shown to assist the folding and deposition of seed storage proteins during the biogenesis of protein bodies in the endosperm. Cloning and characterization of the complete set of genes encoding PDI and PDI like proteins in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum cv. Chinese...

The classic wheat evolutionary history is one of adaptive radiation of the diploid Triticum/Aegilops species (A, S, D), genome convergence and divergence of the tetraploid (Triticum turgidum AABB, and Triticum timopheevii AAGG) and hexaploid (Triticum aestivum, AABBDD) species. We analyzed Acc-1 (plastid acetyl-CoA carboxylase) and Pgk-1 (plastid 3-phosphoglycerate kinase) genes to determine ph...

Sequence tagged site (STS) markers have been developed recently to identify resistance genes in wheat. A number of wild relatives have been used to transfer resistance genes into wheat cultivars. Accessions of wild species of Triticeae: Aegilops longissima (4), Ae. speltoides (6), Ae. tauschii (8), Ae. umbellulata (3), Ae. ventricosa (3), Triticum spelta (2), T. timopheevi (3), T. boeoticum (4)...

The environment can have a decisive influence on the structure of the genome, changing it in a certain direction. Therefore, the genomic distribution of environmentally sensitive transposable elements may vary measurably across a species area. In the present research, we aimed to detect and evaluate the level of LTR retrotransposon intraspecific variability in Aegilops speltoides (2n = 2x = 14)...

The transfer of alien genes to crop plants using chromosome engineering has been attempted infrequently in tetraploid durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum). Here, we report a highly efficient approach for the transfer of two genes conferring resistance to stem rust race Pgt-TTKSK (Ug99) from goatgrass (Aegilops speltoides) to tetraploid wheat. The durum line DAS15, carrying the stem r...