Background: Pre-harvest sprouting frequently occurs in Triticum aestivum (wheat) and Hordeum vulgare (barley) at the end of the maturity period due to high rainfall, particularly in Asian monsoon areas. Seed dormancy is a major mechanism preventing pre-harvest sprouting in these crops.
Results: We identified orthologous sequences of the major Hordeum vulgare (barley) seed dormancy gene Qsd1 in hexaploid wheat cv. Chinese Spring by performing genomic clone sequencing, followed by transcript sequencing. We detected 13 non-synonymous amino acid substitutions among the three sub-genomes of wheat and found that the Qsd1 sequence in the B sub-genome is most similar to that in barley. The Qsd1 sequence in A genome diploid wheat is highly similar to that in the hexaploid A sub-genome. Wheat orthologs of Qsd1 showed closer similarities to barley Qsd1 than did those of other accessions in the DNA database. Like barley Qsd1, all three wheat Qsd1s showed embryo-specific gene expression patterns, indicating that barley and wheat Qsd1 share an orthologous origin. The alignment of four hexaploid wheat cultivars indicated that the amino acid sequences of three spring cultivars, Chinese Spring, Haruyo Koi, and Fielder, are exactly the same in each sub-genome. Only Kitahonami has three amino acid substitutions at the B sub-genome.
Conclusions: Kitahonami has a longer seed dormancy period than does Chinese Spring. Sequence polymorphisms between Chiniese Spring and Kitahonami in the B sub-genome may underlie the phenotypic differences in seed dormancy between these hexaploid wheat cultivars.
Keywords: Aegilops; Alanine aminotransferase; Orthologs; Pre-harvest sprouting; Quantitative trait locus; Triticum.