Allelic Variation and Genetic Diversity at Glu-1 Loci in Chinese Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Germplasms

Abstract

Wheat processing quality is greatly influenced by the seed proteins especially the high molecular weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS) components, the low molecular weight glutenin subunit (LMW-GS) components and gliadin components. Genes encoding the HMW-GS and LMW-GS components were located on the long arms and the short arms of homoeologous group 1 chromosomes, respectively. HMW-GS components in 5 129 accessions of wheat germplasms were analyzed systematically, including 3 459 landraces and 1 670 modern varieties. These accessions were chosen as candidate core collections to represent the genetic diversity of Chinese common wheat (Triticum aestivum ) germplasms documented and conserved in the National Gene Bank. These candidate core collections covered the 10 wheat production regions in China. In the whole country, the dominating alleles at the three loci are Glu-A1b (null), Glu-B1b (7 + 8), and Glu- D1a (2 + 12), respectively. The obvious difference between the land race and the modern variety is the dramatic frequency increase of alleles Glu-A1a (1), Glu-B1c (7 + 9), Glu-B1h (14 + 15), Glu-D1d (5 + 10) and allele cording 5 + 12 subunits in the later ones. In the whole view, there is minor difference on the genetic(allelic)richness between the landrace and the modern variety at Glu-1, which is 28 and 30 respectively. However, the genetic dispersion index (Simpson index) based on allelic variation and frequencies at Glu-A1, Glu-B1 and Glu-D1 suggested that the modern varieties had much higher genetic diversity than the landraces. This revealed that various isolating mechanisms (such as auto-gamous nature, low migration because of undeveloped transposition system) limited the gene flow and exchange between populations of the landraces, which led up to some genotypes localized in very small areas. Modern breeding has strongly promoted gene exchanges and introgression between populations and previous isolated populations. In the three loci, Glu-B1 has the highest genetic diversity, then Glu-D1, while Glu- A1 always k