Novel nuclear-cytoplasmic interaction in wheat (Triticum aestivum) induces vigorous plants

Ali Soltani, Ajay Kumar, Mohamed Mergoum, Seyed Mostafa Pirseyedi, Justin B. Hegstad, Mona Mazaheri, Shahryar F. Kianian

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

Interspecific hybridization can be considered an accelerator of evolution, otherwise a slow process, solely dependent on mutation and recombination. Upon interspecific hybridization, several novel interactions between nuclear and cytoplasmic genomes emerge which provide additional sources of diversity. The magnitude and essence of intergenomic interactions between nuclear and cytoplasmic genomes remain unknown due to the direction of many crosses. This study was conducted to address the role of nuclear-cytoplasmic interactions as a source of variation upon hybridization. Wheat (Triticum aestivum) alloplasmic lines carrying the cytoplasm of Aegilops mutica along with an integrated approach utilizing comparative quantitative trait locus (QTL) and epigenome analysis were used to dissect this interaction. The results indicate that cytoplasmic genomes can modify the magnitude of QTL controlling certain physiological traits such as dry matter weight. Furthermore, methylation profiling analysis detected eight polymorphic regions affected by the cytoplasm type. In general, these results indicate that novel nuclear-cytoplasmic interactions can potentially trigger an epigenetic modification cascade in nuclear genes which eventually change the genetic network controlling physiological traits. These modified genetic networks can serve as new sources of variation to accelerate the evolutionary process. Furthermore, this variation can synthetically be produced by breeders in their programs to develop epigenomic-segregating lines.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)171-182
Number of pages12
JournalFunctional and Integrative Genomics
Volume16
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, 2016.

Keywords

  • Alloplasmic
  • Epigenetic
  • Nuclear-cytoplasm interaction
  • Vigor
  • Wheat

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Novel nuclear-cytoplasmic interaction in wheat (Triticum aestivum) induces vigorous plants'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this