Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

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

A Novel Resource For Genomics Of Rye And Wheat: BAC Library Specific For The Short Arm Of Chromosome 1R (1RS)

Jan Safar¹ , Hana Simkova¹ , Pavla Suchankova¹ , Pavlina Kovarova¹ , Jan Bartos¹ , Jan Janda¹ , Marie Kubalakova¹ , Jarmila Cihalikova¹ , Tamas Lelley² , Jaroslav Dolezel¹

¹  Laboratory of Molecular Cytogenetics and Cytometry, Institute of Experimental Botany, Sokolovska 6, CZ-77200 Olomouc, Czech Republic

²  Institute of Agrobiotechnology, Konrad Lorenz Str. 20, A-3430 Tulln, Austria

Several hundred wheat cultivars world wide carry the short arm of rye chromosome 1R (1RS), replacing the short arm of chromosome 1B or 1A. The translocation confers important agronomic traits to wheat by improving its tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress and increases yield. A detailed knowledge of 1RS at molecular level is needed to support further improvement of existing wheat cultivars, including the elimination of the negative effect of the translocation on bread making quality. The analysis at molecular level could be greatly simplified if a genomic resource specific to 1RS was available. In our previous work, we developed tools that facilitate purification of chromosomes in large quantities using laser flow cytometry and creation of chromosome-arm specific BAC libraries. In this work, 4.1 million copies of 1RS were flow-sorted, their DNA was partially digested using HindIII and used to construct a BAC library. The library consists of 67,584 clones and represents approximately 12.9 equivalents of 1RS (considering 1RS size ~400 Mbp). It comprises two sub-libraries differing in mean insert size. The first sub-library contains 31,488 clones with an average insert size of 95 kb, representing 7.5-fold coverage of 1RS. The second sub-library contains 36,096 clones with an average insert size of 60 kb, representing 5.4-fold coverage. Work is in progress to create a second BAC library from 1RS using BamHI restriction enzyme with the aim to improve the coverage of the chromosome. This work has been supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grant awards 204/04/1207, 521/04/0607, and 521/05/H013).