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Simple sequence repeats marker polymorphism in emmer wheat (
Triticumdicoccon
Schrank): Analysis of genetic diversity and differentiation
Yifru Teklu
1,
*, K. Hammer
1
and M.S. Ro ¨der
2
1
Institute of Crop Science, Agro-biodiversity Department, University of Kassel, Steinstr. 19, D-37213Witzenhausen, Germany;
2
Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Corrensstraße 3,D-06466 Gatersleben, Germany; *Author for correspondence (e-mail: tyifru@yahoo.com)
Received 2 August 2005; accepted in revised form 27 January 2006
Key words:
Emmer wheat, Gene differentiation, Genetic diversity, Microsatellites, Tetraploid wheats,
Triticum dicoccon
Abstract
Genetic diversity was investigated in 73 accessions of emmer wheat (
Triticum dicoccon
Schrank) from 11geographical regions using a set of 29 simple-sequence repeat (SSR or microsatellite) markers, representingat least two markers for each chromosome. The SSR primers amplified a total of 357 different alleles withan average of 12.31 alleles per locus. The number of fragments detected by each primer ranged between 6(
Xgwm1066
) and 21 (
Xgwm268
). Null alleles were detected in nine of the 29 primers used. A high level of gene diversity index was observed. Across the 29 primers, gene diversity ranged from 0.60
(Xgwm46)
to0.94 (
Xgwm655
), with a mean of 0.82. There was a highly significant correlation (
r
=0.882;
p
<0.01)between gene diversity index and the number of loci, showing the number of loci
per se
is a strong indicatorof diversity. Analysis of genetic diversity within and among eleven geographical regions revealed most of the genetic diversity of the total sample resided within regions. The coefficient of gene differentiation(Gst=0.27) showed that the genetic variation within and among the 11 geographical regions was 73 and27%, respectively. High value of mean number of alleles per locus was found in Iran (4.86) followed byMorocco (4.10) and Armenia (4.03). On the contrary, lower mean number of alleles per locus was detectedin Yemen (2.83). The average gene diversity index across regions ranged from 0.52 (Slovakia) to 0.67(Morocco) with an average of 0.60. Multivariate techniques of principal component analysis and clusteringwere employed to examine genetic relationship among the 73 emmer wheat accessions vis-a `-vis geo-graphical regions of collections. The genetic distance coefficients for all possible 55 pairs of regionalcomparisons ranged from 0.63 (between Iran and Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, Georgia and Slo-vakia) to 0.97 (between Morocco and Yemen, Spain and Georgia, and Turkey and Iran) with a mean of 0.82. From the PCA results, a two dimensional plot of PC1 versus PC2 was constructed. The scatter plot of the first two principal components which explained altogether 27% of the total variation depicted thepresence of a clear pattern of geographical differentiation except in few cases like accessions from Cau-casian region. Similar pattern of genetic relationships among accessions was observed in cluster analysis.The study provided genetic information of emmer wheat in relation to geographical regions of origin. Theinformation could be utilized in crop improvement, germplasm conservation programs, and in furtherinvestigation.
Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution (2007) 54:543–554
Ó
Springer 2006DOI 10.1007/s10722-006-0011-7
 
Introduction
Emmer wheat (
Triticum dicoccon
Schrank) is anallopolyploid species (2
n
= 4X = 28) with thegenome formula AABB. It is one of the firstcereals ever domesticated and belongs to the oldestcrops of the world (Damania et al. 1992; Nesbittand Samuel 1996; Hammer et al. 2004). It isoriginated in the mountains of the Fertile Cres-cent: in Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Israel andPalestine, where its wild progenitor (
T. dicoccoides
Koern. ex Asch. et Graebn.) Schweinf. still thrives(Harlan and Zohary 1966; Perrino et al. 1996).Vavilov (1964) proposed that wheat spread fromwestern Asia, the primary centre of development,to Europe through the Caucasus and the BalkanMountains. According to Szabo ´and Hammer(1996) and Filatenko et al. (2001), domesticatedemmer was widely distributed from NorthernAfrica through most parts of Europe and theMediterranean area to Central Asia. Emmer wasthe only or by far the principal wheat until theemergence of the tetraploid naked species in the1st millennium BC and in most of Europe com-petition from other wheat species was significantup to about the birth of Christ (Helbaeck 1959).With the development of agriculture, however, thecultivation of emmer wheat was replaced by dur-um wheat and soft wheat and emmer becameincreasingly limited. At present emmer wheat isunder cultivation in marginal farming areas of Oman, Slovakia, Yemen, Italy, the Balkan Penin-sula, Turkey, Ethiopian highlands, Morocco,India, in some parts of Spain, etc. (Hammer andPerrino 1984; D’Antuono 1989; Pen ˜a-Chocarro1996; Hammer et al. 2004; Teklu and Hammer2005). It is of importance for organic farming andfood production, as well.Emmer wheat is grown for human consumptionand cattle feed. It is one of the high protein con-taining cultivated wheat species. Its grain proteincontent ranges from 8.5 to 21.5%, which is 5–35%higher than oats or barley (Stallknecht et al. 1997).With emmer’s high protein content and smooth,easily digested starch, the gruel is especiallyfavoured by nursing mothers. One of the mostvaluable characters of emmer is the occurence of disease resistance forms. It is non susceptibleto rust and powdery mildew (Vavilov 1931). Ahigh degree of allelic variation was evident for theseed storage proteins (glutenins and gliadins)(Piergiovanni and Blanco 1999; Pflu ¨ger et al.2001). This wide polymorphism can be used totransfer new quality genes to bread and durumwheats, and to widen its genetic basis. Emmer wheatis thought to be the base population from which thefounder genotypes of durum wheat populationswere derived, and thus it represents a geneticresource for durum wheat cultivars, providing goodgenes for resistance to biotic and abiotic stress(Corazza et al. 1986; Damania et al. 1992).A renewed interest has occurred during the lastdecade toward local varieties of emmer wheat(Barcaccia et al. 2002). The revival of traditionalfood has increased the interest in hulled wheatsover the last few years. This is due to the low-inputtechniques used for their management (D’Antuono1989), the increasing demand for unconventionalfoods, and the therapeutic properties attributedto their derivatives (Auricchio et al. 1982). Thepotential of emmer wheat resides mainly in itsgenetic potential to obtain new products with highdigestibility and non-toxicity for coeliac disease(Pflu ¨ger et al. 2001). In addition, the variability of emmer wheat could be a useful gene reservoir forthe breeding programs of durum and bread wheats(Sharma et al. 1981; Srivastava and Damania1989). Currently, emmer is a candidate crop forsustainable agriculture in Italy (Figliuolo andPerrino 2004). Pre-breeding and breeding workaimed at improving yield stability and qualitytraits have been started (Laghetti et al. 1999), andrecently two new cultivars have been selected andregistered. To effectively utilize the crop, Perrino etal. (1996) suggested a study on hulled wheatgermplasm regarding phenotypic and genotypicvariability and diversification in the centre of cul-tivation of emmer wheat.The estimation of genetic diversity at the DNAlevelimprovestheidentificationandcharacterizationof primary and secondary centres of diversity(Serret et al. 1997; Chowdhury and Slinkard 2000).Knowledge of diversity patterns will also allowbreeders to better understand the evolutionaryrelationships among accessions, to sample germ-plasm in a more systematic fashion, and to developstrategies to incorporate useful diversity in theirbreeding programs (Bretting and Widrlechner1995). Despite this, the genetic characterization atthe DNA level which is a key tool for modernexploitationoflocalvarietiesofneglectedcropssuchas emmer wheat are lacking (Barcaccia et al. 2002).544
 
Different DNA analysis techniques are availablefor genome analysis in cereals, such as restrictionfragment length polymorphisms (RFLP), random-amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), simplesequence repeats (SSR), expressed sequence tags(EST), sequence characterized amplified regions(SCAR) and amplified fragment length polymor-phisms (AFLP). Simple sequence repeats, alsoknown as microsatellites, are tandem repeat motifscomposed of one to six nucleotides, which areubiquitous,abundantandhighlypolymorphicinalleukaryotic genomes (Tautz and Renz 1984). SSRsin particular have been reported to be useful toanalyze the structure of germplasm collections, be-cause they are codominant, multiallelic and chro-mosomespecific(Huangetal.2002).SSRsgenerallydetect high levels of polymorphism (Ro ¨der et al.1998), can detect heterogeneity and heterozygotes,andareamenabletoautomatedanalysis.Therefore,SSR primers were used in this study to investigatethe genetic diversity of emmer wheat collected fromeleven different geographical regions.
Materials and methods
Plant materials
A total of 73 accessions of 
Triticum dicoccon
Schrank germplasm held at the institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK),Gatersleben, Germany were used. The accessionswere collected from 11 different countries of NearEast, Middle East, Central Asia, Europe andNorth Africa. Besides, the hexaploid
T. aestivum
varieties ‘Chinese Springand ‘Aztecwere in-cluded as standards, Lists of the accession andcountry of origin are presented in Table 1.
DNA extraction and PCR amplification
For each accession, nine kernels were pooled andDNA was isolated following the procedure in Ful-ton et al. (1995) with extraction buffer described inPlaschke et al. (1995). PCR amplifications wereperformed as described by Ro ¨der et al. (1998;unpublished). PCR reaction contained 50–100 ngtemplate DNA, 250 nM cy5-labelled forward pri-mer, 250 nM unlabelled reverse primer, 0.2 mMdNTPs, 2.5
l
L PCR buffer (10
·
), 1.5 mM MgCl
2
,1 U
Taq
DNA polymerase in a total volume of 25
l
L, Fragment detection was performed accord-ing to Ro ¨der et al. 1998). Fragments were detectedby an Automated Laser Fluorescence (ALF) se-quencer (Amersham Biosciences) and fragment si-zes were calculated using the computer programFragment Analyser 1.02 (Amersham Biosciences)by comparison with internal size standards. In thecase of weak or no fragment products, PCRamplifications were repeated to exclude failed PCRreaction as the cause of the null allele.
Microsatellite loci 
The microsatellites used for analysis are listed inTable 2. Twenty-eight Gatersleben Wheat Micro-satellites (GWM) and one microsatellite from apseudogliadine gene, Taglgap, representing two
Table 1.
Country of origin, sample size (
n
), and IPK accession numbers of plant materials used in the study.Country
n
IPK Accession NumbersArmenia 9 Tri 9542, Tri 9543, Tri 11167, Tri 16207, Tri 17698, Tri 18039, Tri 18041, Tri 18042, and Tri 18043Azerbaijan 7 Tri 18092, Tri 18093, Tri 18094, Tri 18095, Tri 18097, Tri 18098, and Tri 18099Georgia 6 Tri 13158, Tri 16608, Tri 16609, Tri 18193, Tri 18197, and Tri 18206Iran 11 Tri 6141, Tri 6158, Tri 7305, Tri 18080, Tri 18081, Tri 18082, Tri 5861, Tri 18084, Tri 18085,Tri 18087, and Tri 18089Israel 4 Tri 3424, Tri 16877, Tri 16879, and Tri 16880Italy 6 Tri 16723, Tri 16726, Tri 16798, Tri 16803, Tri 16807, and Tri 18243Morocco 6 Tri 2884, Tri 4313, Tri 17429, Tri 18167, Tri 18168, and Tri 18169Slovakia 9 Tri 9867, Tri 9868, Tri 10063, Tri 10064, Tri 10066, Tri 10069, Tri 10070, Tri 10071, and Tri 10317Spain 6 Tri 16885, Tri 18114, Tri 18115, Tri 18156, Tri 18161, and Tri 18164Turkey 5 Tri 584, Tri 17023, Tri 17038, Tri 17040, and Tri 17058Yemen 4 Tri 28004, Tri 28027, Tri 28072, and Tri 18073Total 73
545
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