ARS | Publication request: New cis-regulatory elements in the Rht-D1b locus region of wheat

Submitted to: Functional and Integrative Genomics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: April 10, 2012
Publication Date: May 17, 2012
Citation: Duan, J., Wu, J., Gu, Y.Q., Kong, X. 2012. New cis-regulatory elements in the Rht-D1b locus region of wheat. Functional and Integrative Genomics. Available at: http://rd.springer.com/article/10.2007/s10142-012-0283-2. DOI 10.1007/s10142-012-0283-2.

Interpretive Summary: Wheat is one of the most important food crops in the world. The substantial increases of wheat yield was made possible by introducing dwarfing traits into plant. In wheat, the widely used dwarfing trait is encoded by Rht gene. Detailed characterization of this gene by sequence analysis could provide molecular basis regarding the regulation, function, and expression of this important genes in wheat. In the work, a large genomic region spanning the Rht gene was sequenced to identify genes and their structures in this regions. This sequence information was compared to the corresponding regions from other related grass species such as rice and Brachypodium. It appeared the gene content and order (gene colinearity) was conserved among grass species. In addition, it seems sequence regulating the expression of these genes are also shared, suggesting that Rht gene is regulated in the same manner in grain crops. The research results provide information useful for wheat improvement by introducing this dwarfing trait into breeding programs.

Technical Abstract: Fifteen gene-containing BACs with accumulated length of 1.82-Mb from the Rht-D1b locus region weresequenced and compared in detail with the orthologous regions of rice, sorghum, and maize. Our results show that Rht-D1b represents a conserved genomic region as implied by high gene sequence identity, good maintenance of gene colinearity, and the presence of multiple conserved noncoding sequences (CNSs) that are shared by other grass species. Eight cis-regulatory elements in these CNSs around grass DELLA genes were detected.