Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

January 14-18, 2006
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Detailed Molecular Characterization Of The ‘Ph1 Gene Region’ Of Wheat

Gaganpreet Sidhu , Mustafa Shafqat , Kulvinder S Gill

  291 Johnson Hall, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164 USA

The Ph1 gene, which is the principal gene regulating chromosome pairing in wheat, has been localized to a small region on chromosome arm 5BL (Ph1 gene region). The region is flanked by the breakpoints of deletion line 5BL-1 on the proximal side and interstitial mutant line ph1c on the distal side. We identified fourteen new gene markers for the region by a combination of comparative analysis and deletion mapping. A 450 Kb region on rice chromosome 9 homoeologous to the ‘Ph1 gene region’ was identified by comparative analysis and cross-mapping of gene markers. A similar marker order showed a very high synteny for the region between wheat and rice. By in silico functional analysis and expression analysis, 21 genes were selected for their putative Ph1 like function, out of the 94 genes that were present in the 450 Kb rice region. These include genes having role in chromatin remodeling, chromosome segregation, protein-protein interactions, DNA binding domains, acetyltransferases, methyltransferases as well as kinases. These Ph1 gene candidates are being tested for their expression in wheat and the selected few are being tested by RNAi. Most current results will be presented at the meeting.