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INTERMEDIUM-C, a modifier of lateral spikelet fertility in barley, is an ortholog of the maize domestication gene TEOSINTE BRANCHED 1

Nature Genetics volume 43, pages 169–172 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

The domestication of cereals has involved common changes in morphological features, such as seed size, seed retention and modification of vegetative and inflorescence architecture that ultimately contributed to an increase in harvested yield1. In barley, this process has resulted in two different cultivated types, two-rowed and six-rowed forms, both derived from the wild two-rowed ancestor, with archaeo-botanical evidence indicating the origin of six-rowed barley early in the domestication of the species, some 8,600–8,000 years ago2. Variation at SIX-ROWED SPIKE 1 (VRS1) is sufficient to control this phenotype. However, phenotypes imposed by VRS1 alleles are modified by alleles at the INTERMEDIUM-C (INT-C) locus. Here we show that INT-C is an ortholog of the maize domestication gene TEOSINTE BRANCHED 1 (TB1) and identify 17 coding mutations in barley TB1 correlated with lateral spikelet fertility phenotypes.

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Figure 1: The inflorescence and tillering phenotypes of alleles of INTERMEDIUM-C.
Figure 2: Genome-wide and local association scans and mutant analyses.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by UK Sustainable Arable LINK 302 / BB/D522003/1 'Association Genetics of Elite UK Barleys' and United States Department of Agriculture-Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service-National Research Institute (USDA-CSREES-NRI) grant no. 2006-55606-16722 'Barley Coordinated Agricultural Project; leveraging Genomics, Genetics, and Breeding for Gene Discovery and Barley Improvement'. We thank A. Roberts and S. Chapman (Scottish Crop Research Institute) for technical advice and M. Boulton and T. Moore (John Innes Centre) for guidance on sequencing SLENDER1.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Genetics Programme, Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee, Scotland, UK

    Luke Ramsay, Jordi Comadran, Arnis Druka, David F Marshall, William T B Thomas, Malcolm Macaulay, Craig Simpson, John Fuller, Nicola Bonar & Robbie Waugh

  2. Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland, Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee, Scotland, UK

    Katrin MacKenzie

  3. Barley Project Crop Science Building, Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon, USA

    Patrick M Hayes

  4. Nordic Genetic Resource Center, Alnarp, Sweden

    Udda Lundqvist

  5. Queensland Primary Industries and Fisheries, Hermitage Research Station, Warwick, Queensland, Australia

    Jerome D Franckowiak

  6. Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside, California, USA

    Timothy J Close

  7. Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

    Gary J Muehlbauer

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  1. Luke Ramsay
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Contributions

L.R., J.C. and R.W. drafted the manuscript. J.C. and K.M. performed statistical analyses. T.J.C. led the SNP genotyping effort. L.R., A.D., N.B. and M.M. provided additional genotyping information. A.D. performed detailed phenotyping data, including scanning electron microscopy work. C.S. and J.F. provided expression data. A.D., D.F.M., W.T.B.T., P.M.H., U.L., J.D.F., T.J.C. and G.J.M. made important suggestions to the analytical plan, aided interpretation of results and participated in revising the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robbie Waugh.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Note, Supplementary Tables 2–4 and Supplementary Figure 1–8 (PDF 349 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

List of the 190 lines used in survey showing VRS1 and INT-C alleles (XLS 34 kb)

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Ramsay, L., Comadran, J., Druka, A. et al. INTERMEDIUM-C, a modifier of lateral spikelet fertility in barley, is an ortholog of the maize domestication gene TEOSINTE BRANCHED 1. Nat Genet 43, 169–172 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.745

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