High Transferability of Homoeolog-Specific Markers between Bread Wheat and Newly Synthesized Hexaploid Wheat Lines

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, 2n = 6x = 42, AABBDD) has a complex allohexaploid genome, which makes it difficult to differentiate between the homoeologous sequences and assign them to the chromosome A, B, or D subgenomes. The chromosome-based draft genome sequence of the ‘Chinese Spring’ common wheat cultivar enables the large-scale development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based markers specific for homoeologs. Based on high-confidence ‘Chinese Spring’ genes with known functions, we developed 183 putative homoeolog-specific markers for chromosomes 4B and 7B. These markers were used in PCR assays for the 4B and 7B nullisomes and their euploid synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW) line that was newly generated from a hybridization between Triticum turgidum (AABB) and the wild diploid species Aegilops tauschii (DD). Up to 64% of the markers for chromosomes 4B or 7B in the SHW background were confirmed to be homoeolog-specific. Thus, these markers were highly transferable between the ‘Chinese Spring’ bread wheat and SHW lines. Homoeolog-specific markers designed using genes with known functions may be useful for genetic investigations involving homoeologous chromosome tracking and homoeolog expression and interaction analyses.