(go to KOMUGI Home) (go to WIS List) (go to NO.85 Contents)


Wheat Information Service
Number 85: 45-46 (1997)
Research information

Screening of spontaneous translocations in cultivated Emmer wheat

T. Kawahara

Laboratory of Crop Evolution, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Mozume, Muko, Kyoto 617, Japan

Although many spontaneous translocations have been reported in tetraploid Emmer wheat (Nishikawa et al. 1986; Schlegel 1996), the overall frequency of rearranged types is unknown. In this study, the translocations in cultivated Emmer wheat was screened and the translocation frequency was estimated.

Twenty five strains of cultivated Emmer wheat were intercrossed and chromosome pairings were observed in F1 hybrids (for strain number, see
Table 1 ). They consist of 6 strains of Triticum dicoccum Schubl., 5 of T. durum Desf., 4 of T. carthlicum Nevski, three each of T. abyssinicum Vav. and T. Paleocolchicum Men and one each of T. orientale Perc., T. polonicum L., T. pyramidale (Del.) Perc. and T. turgidum L. (for detailed passport data, see Tanaka 1983). Several translocation tester strains of wild Emmer (Taketa and Kawahara 1996), T. dicoccoides Korn. were also used in the crossings. The chromosome pairings of the hybrids were observed at the first meiotic metaphase of the pollen mother cells by the aceto-orcein squash method.

The strains examined were classified into four groups based on the presence or absence of translocations; those without translocations (E1a type), and those with one (E7 type) and two translocations (E21 and E22 type) as shown in
Table 1 . Three strains with one translocation were intercrossed and the hybrids showed normal meiosis with 14 bivalents. They were then crossed with the translocation testers, E2 to E6, of T. dicoccoides and pairings were observed as shown in Table 2. Since this translocation is different from those already found in T. dicoccoides, the rearranged chromosome structure was named E7 type. One of the two strains with two translocations, KU-185, shared one translocation in common with the E7 type (Table 2) and was called the E21 type. The other, KU-111, had two different translocations from E21 (detailed data not shown) and was named E22. The present results are in agreement. with those obtained by Nishikawa et al. (1986). From the chromosome pairing among strains and the detailed information on strains used, the types reported by Nishikawa et al. (1986) corresponded to those used in this study. Chromosomes involved in translocations of wild and cultivated Emmer wheat have been identified by using telosomics or Cbanding (Nishikawa et al. 1986; 1994, Taketa and Kawahara 1996) and the available data are summarized in Table 3. Observed multivalents shown in Table 2 are in agreement with those expected from Table 3.

The standard type, E1a, was found in both wild and cultivated Emmer but E2 to E6 in wild type only and E7, E21 and E22 in cultivated form. All three strains of T. abyssinicum, KU-185, 186 and 188, had a common 2A-4B translocation, suggesting the fixation of this structural rearrangement in T. abyssinicum.

In summary, of 25 strains examined 20 were of the standard type, three had one translocation and two had two translocations. The average number of translocations (total number of translocations detected/number of strains examined) in cultivated Emmer wheat was 0.280. This is in good agreement with that of 0.202 reported for Israeli wild populations of T. dicoccoides (Kawahara and Nevo 1996). Therefore, the present value can be regarded to be a good estimation of the frequency of spontaneous chromosomal mutation in cultivated Emmer.


References

Kawahara T and Nevo E (1996) Screening of spontaneous major translocations in Israeli populations of Triticum dicoccoides Korn. Wheat Inf Serv 83: 28-30.

Nishikawa K, Takagi A, Ban T, Otsuka H and Furuta Y (1986) Spontaneous reciprocal translocations in cultivated form of Emmer wheat. Jpn J Genet 61:361-370.

Nishikawa K, Mizuno S and Furuta Y (1994) Identification of chromosomes involved in translocations in wild Emmer. Jpn J Genet 69: 371-376.

Schlegel R (1996) A compendium of reciprocal translocations in wheat: 2nd Edition. Wheat Inf Serv 83:35-46 Taketa S and Kawahara T (1996) C-banding analysis on wild Emmer (Triticum dicoccoides Korn.) strains with and without spontaneous reciprocal translocations. Theor Appl Genet 92: 173-178.

Tanaka M (1983) Catalogue of Aegilops-Triticum germ-plasm preserved in Kyoto University. Plant Germplasm Inst Fac Agric Kyoto Univ: 1-179.

(go to KOMUGI Home) (go to WIS List) (go to NO.85 Contents)