Revisiting meiotic pairing in wheat synthetics in relation to the evolution of the meiotic system in wheat

• Published in: Plant systematics and evolution Vol. 303; no. 9; pp. 1311 - 1316
• Main Authors: Jahier, Joseph, Coriton, Olivier, Deffains, Denise, Arnaud, Dominique, Chalhoub, Boulos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer-Verlag GmbH 01.11.2017; Springer Vienna; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Verlag (Germany)
• Subjects: Aneuploidy; Biological evolution; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Chromosome translocations; Chromosomes; Evolutionary genetics; Genomes; Life Sciences; Meiosis; Plant Anatomy/Development; Plant Ecology; Plant Sciences; Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography; SHORT COMMUNICATION; Vegetal Biology; Wheat; Evolution; Meiosis; Chromosome pairing; Wheat; Allohexaploid
• ISSN: 0378-2697; 1615-6110; 2199-6881
• DOI: 10.1007/s00606-017-1425-8

A large panel of hexaploid wheat synthetics was developed. Their tetraploid parents consisted of either four extracted wheat tetraploids (ETWs) or four natural presentday tetraploids, and their diploid parents consisted of twenty accessions of Aegilops tauschii. Analysis of meiotic behaviour of the synthetics showed that chromosome pairing is highly variable and depends on the progenitor. The meiotic behaviour in the four ETWs was compared to that of the natural tetraploid wheats. It appears there was no evolution at the hexaploid level of the meiotic genes carried by the A and B genomes. We also reach the conclusion that the neo-allohexaploids at the origin of present-day wheat had a meiotic behaviour close to that of the present-day hexaploid wheat. It is likely that other neo-hexaploids with an impaired meiosis were formed, but they had no future due to their more or less rapid disappearance due to increasing aneuploidy level and structural changes, mainly Robertsonian translocations.