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Sequence divergence between spelt and common wheat

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Abstract

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Sequence comparison between spelt and common wheat reveals that the former has huge potential in enriching the genetic variation of the latter.

Abstract

Genetic variation is the foundation of crop improvement. By comparing genome sequences of a Triticum spelta accession and one of its derived hexaploid lines with the sequences of the international reference genotype Chinese Spring, we detected variants more than tenfold higher than those present among common wheat (T. aestivum L) genotypes. Furthermore, different from the typical ‘V-shaped’ pattern of variant distribution often observed along wheat chromosomes, the sequence variation detected in this study was more evenly distributed along the 3B chromosome. This was also the case between T. spelta and the wild emmer genome. Genetic analysis showed that T. spelta and common wheat formed discrete groups. These results showed that, although it is believed that the spelt and common wheat are evolutionarily closely related and belong to the same species, a significant sequence divergence exists between them. Thus, the values of T. spelta in enriching the genetic variation of common wheat can be huge.

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Acknowledgements

Work reported here was supported by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organization (CSIRO), Australia (Project code: R-10191-01), and a Chinese Academy of Sciences-CSIRO Joint Project (Project No. R-1910-1). ML is grateful to the Sichuan Agricultural University and the China Scholarship Council for funding his visit to CSIRO. JV, KH, and JD were supported by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (Award LO 1204 from the National Program of Sustainability I).

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Author notes

  1. Miao Liu and Qiang Zhao have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIRO Agriculture and Food, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia, QLD, 4067, Australia

    Miao Liu, Jiri Stiller, John M. Manners & Chunji Liu

  2. Crop Research Institute, Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 4 Shizishan Road, Jinjiang District, Chengdu, 610066, China

    Miao Liu

  3. Triticeae Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, Wenjiang, Chengdu, 611130, China

    Miao Liu & Dengcai Liu

  4. National Center for Gene Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 500 Caobao Road, Shanghai, 200233, China

    Qiang Zhao, Feng Qi, Shican Tang, Jiashun Miao & Bin Han

  5. Institute of Experimental Botany, Centre of the Region Haná for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research, Šlechtitelů 31, 78371, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Jan Vrána, Kateřina Holušová & Jaroslav Doležel

Authors
  1. Miao Liu
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  2. Qiang Zhao
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  3. Feng Qi
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  4. Jiri Stiller
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  5. Shican Tang
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  6. Jiashun Miao
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  7. Jan Vrána
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  8. Kateřina Holušová
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  9. Dengcai Liu
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  10. Jaroslav Doležel
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  11. John M. Manners
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  12. Bin Han
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  13. Chunji Liu
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bin Han or Chunji Liu.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Additional information

Communicated by Dr. Ling.

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Cite this article

Liu, M., Zhao, Q., Qi, F. et al. Sequence divergence between spelt and common wheat. Theor Appl Genet 131, 1125–1132 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-018-3064-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-018-3064-z

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