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Miller et al (1980) recognized four pairs of sites of rDNA in T. spelta. But, no identification of their loci was carried out except that a third site in size should be that on chromosome 1A. The presence of major rDNA on chromosomes 1A was investigated by in situ hybridization using plants in which chromosomes 1A from T. spelta have been substituted into Chinese Spring wheat. On the contrary, the present result clearly shows that the third site of rDNA is that of chromosome 5D. In many strains of T. aestivum, the greater most part of rDNA on chromosome 5D were deleted. The signal intensity of rDNA was 6B >1B> 5D >1A. The rDNA site on chromosome 5D of T. spelta is almost the same as that of Ae. squarrosa, a diploid D-genome species, in the amount of hybridization signal.

There are two hypotheses on the origin of T. spelta. One hypothesis is that T. spelta is primitive species and T. aestivum was produced from T. spelta. The other hypothesis is that T. spelta is a relatively newly generated species and generated from T. aestivum or from a hybrid between T. dicoccum and T. compactum or T. aestivum (MacKey 1966, Tsunewaki 1969). Our ISH experiments fo rDNA of two genera, Triticum and Aegilops demonstrate that the size of rDNA has a tendency to diminish by terminal deletions of Sat-chromosomes in the course of evolution after amphidiploidization (Mukai et al. in preparation). The present result supports the first hypothesis, though many studies support the second one (Liu et al 1990).


References

Liu YG, Mori N and Tsunewaki K (1990) Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis in wheat. I. Genomic DNA library construction and RFLP analysis in common wheat. Jpn J Genet 65: 367-380.

MacKey J (1966) Species relationship in Triticum. Proc 2nd Int Wheat Genet Symp 1963 Hereditas Suppl Lund 237-276.

Miller TE, Gerlach WL and Flavell RB (1980) Nucleolus organizer variation in wheat and rye revealed by in situ hybridization. Heredity 45: 377-382.

Mukai Y, Endo TR and Gill BS (1991) Physical mapping of the 18S-26S rRNA multigene family in common wheat: Identification of a new locus. Chromosoma 100: 71-78.

Rayburn AL and Gill BS (1986) Molecular identification of the D-genome chromosomes of wheat. J Hered 77: 253-255.

Tunewaki K (1969) Orgin and phylogenetic differentiation of common wheat revealed by comparative gene analysis. Proc 3rd Int Wheat Genet Symp Canberra 71-85.

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