Lulu Gou
,
Triticeae Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, China
David Konkin
,
National Research Council Canada, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Jiro Hattori
,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Farideh Tekieh
,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Danielle Wolfe
,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Margaret Balcerzak
,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Firoozeh Chalabian
,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Jan Vrana
,
Institute of Experimental Botany, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Marie Kubalakova
,
Institute of Experimental Botany, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Jaroslav Dolezel
,
Institute of Experimental Botany, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Nicholas A. Tinker
,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Andrew G. Sharpe
,
National Research Council Canada / Global Institute for Food Security (U of S), Saskatoon, SK, Canada
George Fedak
,
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada
The wild grass species
Thinopyrum elongatum has been identified as a source of strong fusarium head blight (FHB) resistance. Using wheat addition lines carrying single
Th. elongatum chromosomes, resistance to FHB has been mapped to the long arm of chromosome 7E. This resistance is of great interest because it protects wheat against FHB to a high level, and also because the source is located on a single chromosome arm, possibly at a single locus, in contrast to other sources of resistance that are complex and multi-genic.
We are developing approaches and tools to characterize and clone the 7EL source of FHB resistance, including: 1) identification of expressed 7EL candidate genes from contrasting expression profiles between the wheat lines Chinese Spring (CS; FHB susceptible) and CS-7EL (CS plus the addition of the long arm of chromosome7E); 2) development of genetic markers for the expressed 7EL candidate genes; 3) assembly of a draft genome sequence of the 7EL chromosome fragment, obtained using paired end and mate pair Illumina sequencing libraries; 4) characterization of introgressed wheat families containing fragments of 7EL of different sizes, inserted by recombination into the wheat chromosome 7D, following a cross between the mutant line CSph1b and the substitution line CS-7E(7D).
