The report of National Bioresource Project: Seed resources of the Plant Germ-plasm Institute, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University

Taihachi Kawahara, Kyoko Yamane, Takehiro Imai and Yasuo Yasui

Laboratory of Crop Evolution, Plant Germ-plasm Institute, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Mozume, Muko 617-0001, Japan

Corresponding author: Taihachi Kawahara

E-mail: kawatai@mbox.kudpc.kyoto-u.ac.jp

In the first stage (2002-2006) of National BioResource Project (NBRP), Laboratory of Crop Evolution, Plant Germ-plasm Institute (PGPI), has acted as a center responsible for the conservation and multiplication of wheat landraces and wheat relatives including wild Aegilops and Triticum species.  During the five years of the first stage, a total of 3,824 accessions of wheat and its relatives, consisting of 1,305 accessions of landraces, 394 of wild wheats, 1,707 of wild Aegilops and 418 of miscellaneous Triticum and Aegilops species, were multiplied in PGPI and stored as a genetic resource of NBRP (Table 1).  Passport data of accessions maintained at PGPI were checked and revised catalogue was published in 2005 (Kawahara 2005).

In addition to the conservation and multiplication program, preliminary survey of physiological traits and molecular genotyping were carried out for the purpose of efficient use of these genetic resources.  Growth habit of diploid Aegilops and Triticum species were checked under continuous light in a heated glasshouse (minimum of 15 degrees centigrade) together with several standard lines of Japanese wheat cultivars.  In this condition, spring cultivars extended their flag leaves within 50 days but winter cultivars needed more than 100 days for flag leaf extension.  Therefore we classified accessions that extended their flag leaves within 50 days as “spring”, those needed more than 100 days as “winter” and those in-between as “intermediate” (Table 2; Figure 1).  Most accessions of diploid wheat and Ae. tauschii were winter type but several spring accessions were found in Ae. tauschii.  While, majority of Ae. unbellulata accessions were intermediate and many spring accessions were found in this species.

We also analyzed intra-and interspecific variation in chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) in diploid species in order to obtain basic information for species identification by DNA sequence (Yamane and Kawahara 2005, Yamane et al. 2006).  These analyses focused on DNA sequence variation in noncoding regions of cpDNA, which included base-pair substitutions, insertion/deletions, microsatellites, and inversions.  Nine of 13 Aegilops-Triticum species were successfully identified and genotyped using these data.  Sixty-two haplotypes were detected in 115 accessions of 13 diploid species.  Because of the large number of characters examined, novel deep relationships within and among Aegilops-Triticum species could be identified and evaluated.

Furthermore, in collaboration with this NBRP project, we started to construct core collection of Ae. taushii.  By chloroplast DNA fingerprinting, about 450 tauschii accessions with well-documented collection sites from major genebanks are already evaluated.  The production of Tauschii Core Collection will facilitate the utilization of the available genetic resources for the future wheat breeding.

References

Kawahara, T (2005) Catalogue of Aegilops-Triticum Germ-plasm Preserved in Kyoto University, No. 3. Plant Germ-plasm Institute, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University. pp. 313.

Yamane K, Kawahara T (2005) Intra- and interspecific phylogenetic relationships among diploid Triticum-Aegilops species based on base pair substitutions, indels and microsatellites in chloroplast non-coding sequences. Amer J Bot 92: 1887-1898.

Yamane K, Yano K, Kawahara T (2006) Pattern and rate of indel evolution inferred from whole chloroplast intergenic regions in Sugarcane, Maize and Rice. DNA Res 13: 197-204.