A wheat 1‐FEH w3 variant underlies enzyme activity for stem WSC remobilization to grain under drought. Issue 1 (23rd September 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhang, Jingjuan; Xu, Yunji; Chen, Wei; Dell, Bernard; Vergauwen, Rudy; Biddulph, Ben; Khan, Nusrat; Luo, Hao; Appels, Rudi; Van den Ende, Wim
• Is Part Of: New phytologist. Volume 205:Issue 1(2015)
• Page Start: 293
• Page End: 305
• Publication Date: 2014-09-23
• Subjects: Botany -- Periodicals; 580
• DOI: 10.1111/nph.13030
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0028-646X

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="nph13030-abs-0001"> <title>Summary</title> <p> <list id="nph13030-list-0001" list-type="bullet"> <list-item> <p> In wheat stems, the levels of fructan‐dominated water‐soluble carbohydrates (WSC) do not always correlate well with grain yield.</p> </list-item> <list-item> <p> Field drought experiments were carried out to further explain this lack of correlation. Wheat (<italic>Triticum aestivum</italic>) varieties, Westonia, Kauz and <italic>c</italic>. 20 genetically diverse double haploid (DH) lines derived from them were investigated.</p> </list-item> <list-item> <p> Substantial genotypic differences in fructan remobilization were found and the <italic>1‐FEH w3</italic> gene was shown to be the major contributor in the stem fructan remobilization process based on enzyme activity and gene expression results. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) was detected in an auxin response element in the <italic>1‐FEH w3</italic> promoter region, therefore we speculated that the mutated Westonia allele might affect gene expression and enzyme activity levels. A cleaved amplified polymorphic (CAP) marker was generated from the SNP. The harvested results showed that the mutated Westonia <italic>1‐FEH w3</italic> allele was associated with a higher thousand grain weight (TGW) under drought conditions in 2011 and 2012.</p> </list-item> <list-item> <p>These results indicated that higher gene expression of <italic>1‐FEH w3</italic> and <italic>1‐FEH w3</italic> mediated enzyme activities that favoured stem WSC remobilization to the grains. The CAP marker residing in the <italic>1‐FEH w3</italic> promoter region may facilitate wheat breeding by selecting lines with high stem fructan remobilization capacity under terminal drought.</p> </list-item> </list> </p> </abstract>