Functional diversity at the Rc (red coleoptile) gene in bread wheat.pdfVIP

Functional diversity at the Rc (red coleoptile) gene in bread wheat E. K. Khlestkina ? M. S. Ro?der ? T. A. Pshenichnikova ? A. Bo?rner Received: 21 April 2009 / Accepted: 8 July 2009 / Published online: 7 August 2009
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract The presence of the allele Rc-A1b on chromosome 7A specified the expression profile of the F3h-1 (encoding flavanone 3-hydroxylase) genes and anthocyanin pigmentation in coleoptiles of Russian bread wheat cultivar ‘Saratovskaya 29’. A quantitative RT-PCR analysis compared the temporal expression profile of F3h-A1, F3h-B1, and F3h-D1 in the coleoptiles of ‘Saratovskaya 29’ and the standard cytogenetic stock ‘Chinese Spring’ (‘Hope’ 7A), both of which carry Rc-A1b. There was no within-geno- type variation for expression level of the F3h-1 homoeologues at any of the sampling times, but the expression profiles varied markedly between the two genotypes. This result suggested that there may be functional allelic diversity at Rc-A1, which affects the transcription of the F3h-1 genes in colored coleop- tiles. Microsatellite-based genetic mapping was used to locate Rc-A1 along with the new loci Pc-A1 (purple culm), Plb-A1 (purple leaf blade), and Pls-A1 (purple leaf sheath) in a single cluster on the short arm of chromosome 7A. Keywords Wheat
Gene expression
Anthocyanin biosynthesis
Flavanone 3-hydroxylase
Genetic mapping
Anthocyanin pigmentation genes Introduction Genetic analysis in wheat has defined at least 100 major genes affecting various aspects of plant phenotype (McIntosh et al. 2008), but for most of these, neither their genomic sequence and gene product nor cellular function have been ascertained yet. Allelic variation at the majority of these ‘‘phe- notypic’’ genes is frequently limited to two alleles. However, this paucity of variation probably reflects difficulties in detecting subtle differences in gene action, rather than a lack of genetic variation itself. Modern methods for gene tr