Development and Utilization of Introgression Lines Using Synthetic Octaploid Wheat (Aegilops tauschii × Hexaploid Wheat) as Donor

Abstract

As the diploid progenitor of common wheat, <i>Aegilops tauschii</i> Cosson (DD, 2<i>n</i> = 2x = 14) is considered to be a promising genetic resource for the improvement of common wheat. In this work, we demonstrated that the efficiency of transferring <i>A. tauschii</i> segments to common wheat was clearly improved through the use of synthetic octaploid wheat (AABBDDDD, 2<i>n</i> = 8x = 56) as a "bridge." The synthetic octaploid was obtained by chromosome doubling of hybrid F₁ (<i>A. tauschii</i> T015 × common wheat Zhoumai 18). A set of introgression lines (BC₁F₈) containing 6016 <i>A. tauschii</i> segments was developed and displayed significant phenotype variance among lines. Twelve agronomic traits, including growth duration, panicle traits, grain traits, and plant height (PH), were evaluated. And transgressive segregation was identified in partial lines. Additionally, better agronomic traits could be observed in some lines, compared to the recurrent parent Zhoumai 18. To verify that the significant variance of those agronomic traits was supposedly controlled by <i>A. tauschii</i> segments, 14 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for three important agronomic traits (thousand kernel weight, spike length, and PH) were further located in the two environments (Huixian and Zhongmou), indicating the introgression of favorable alleles from <i>A. tauschii</i> into common wheat. This study provides an ameliorated strategy to improve common wheat utilizing a single <i>A. tauschii</i> genome.