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Molecular characterization of Ph1 as a major chromosome pairing locus in polyploid wheat

Nature volume 439, pages 749–752 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

The foundation of western civilization owes much to the high fertility of bread wheat, which results from the stability of its polyploid genome. Despite possessing multiple sets of related chromosomes, hexaploid (bread) and tetraploid (pasta) wheat both behave as diploids at meiosis. Correct pairing of homologous chromosomes is controlled by the Ph1 locus1. In wheat hybrids, Ph1 prevents pairing between related chromosomes2. Lack of Ph1 activity in diploid relatives of wheat suggests that Ph1 arose on polyploidization3. Absence of phenotypic variation, apart from dosage effects, and the failure of ethylmethane sulphonate treatment to yield mutants, indicates that Ph1 has a complex structure4,5. Here we have localized Ph1 to a 2.5-megabase interstitial region of wheat chromosome 5B containing a structure consisting of a segment of subtelomeric heterochromatin that inserted into a cluster of cdc2-related genes after polyploidization. The correlation of the presence of this structure with Ph1 activity in related species, and the involvement of heterochromatin with Ph1 (ref. 6) and cdc2 genes with meiosis, makes the structure a good candidate for the Ph1 locus.

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Figure 1: BAC tiling path and annotated gene content of the Ph1 region and its equivalent region in rice chromosomes 9 and 8 and Brachypodium regions 1 and 2.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council of the UK. Sabbatical support for M.W. was provided by a NIH grant from the NCRR INBRE program. We would like to thank DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred International and P. Prieto for their assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. John Innes Centre, NR4 7UH, Colney, Norwich, UK

    Simon Griffiths, Rebecca Sharp, Tracie N. Foote, Isabelle Bertin, Steve Reader, Isabelle Colas & Graham Moore

  2. Augustana College, South Dakota, 57197, Sioux Falls, USA

    Michael Wanous

Authors
  1. Simon Griffiths
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Graham Moore.

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Competing interests

Sequences were submitted to EMBL/GenBank/DDJB and accession numbers are shown in Supplementary Table 2. Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

Ph1 region genes, their homologies to genes of known function and gene expression in different tissues. (DOC 65 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Sequenced BACs, their EMBL database accession number, gene content, numbers of sequence contigs per BAC and sequence coverage. (XLS 25 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

Wheat Ph1 region genes and their orthologues in rice chromosomes 9 and 8. (XLS 15 kb)

Supplementary Figure 1

Mapping of the Ph1 deletion breakpoints in relation to rice chromosome 9. (PDF 498 kb)

Supplementary Figure 2

Schematic relationship of the conserved genes within the Ph1 deletion region on wheat chromosomes 5B, A and D, rice chromosomes 9 and 8 and Brachypodium regions 1 and 2. (PDF 544 kb)

Supplementary Figure 3

Example of PCR products amplified from cDNA and genomic DNA templates using hyp1 intron-flanking primers. (PDF 566 kb)

Supplementary Figure 4

Hybridisation of the Ph1 tandem repeat onto wheat aneuploid lines, showing locations on chromosomes 5B and 3B. (PDF 1122 kb)

Supplementary Figure 5

Localisation of the 5B tandem repeat to mitotic and meiotic chromosomes by in situ hybridisation. (PDF 2384 kb)

Supplementary Figure 6

Comparative HindIII digests of hexaploid and tetraploid wheat BACs showing tandem repeat bands. (PDF 1243 kb)

Supplementary Figure 7

Cdc2-4B specific PCR assay performed on wheat species containing the B, G or S genome. (PDF 248 kb)

Supplementary Figure 8

Mutiplex PCR assay for the newly defined Ph1 locus. (PDF 501 kb)

Supplementary Figure Legends

This file contains text to accompany the above Supplementary Figures. (DOC 33 kb)

Corrigendum

This file describes the incomplete posting of the Supplementary Information for this paper on 9 February 2006. (DOC 19 kb)

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Griffiths, S., Sharp, R., Foote, T. et al. Molecular characterization of Ph1 as a major chromosome pairing locus in polyploid wheat. Nature 439, 749–752 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04434

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