STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL ANALYSES OF THE WHEAT GENOMES BASED ON EXPRESSED SEQUENCE TAGS (ESTS) RELATED TO ABIOTIC STRESSES

Authors: RAMALINGAM, J - TAMIL NADU AG UNIV-INDIA; PATHAN, M - UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI; FERIL, ORRIN - UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI; MIFTAHUDIN - BOGOR AG UNIV-INDONESIA; Ross, Kathleen; MA, XUEFENG - SAM ROBERTS NOBLE FOUND; MAHMOUD, AHMED - UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI; LAYTON, JAMIE - DUPONT-DALLAS CENTER, IA; RODRIGUEZ-MILLA, M - UNIV OF NEVADA-RENO; CHIKMAWATI, TATIK - BOGOR AG UNIV-INDONESIA; VALLIYODAN, BABU - UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI; SKINNER, ROSANNE - UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI; Matthews, David; Gustafson, J; NGUYEN, HENRY - UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

Submitted to: Genome
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/19/2006
Publication Date: 12/6/2006
Citation: Ramalingam, J., Pathan, M.S., Feril, O., Miftahudin, Ross, K., Ma, X., Mahmoud, A.A., Layton, J., Rodriguez-Milla, M.A., Chikmawati, T., Valliyodan, B., Skinner, R., Matthews, D.E., Gustafson, J.P., Nguyen, H.T. 2006. Structural and functional analyses of the wheat genomes based on expressed sequence tags (ests) related to abiotic stresses. Genome. 49:1324-1340.

Interpretive Summary: The research was designed to evaluate the genetic information given in the public databases for the potential of identifying genes of interest that control wheat's ability to tolerate abiotic stress. The results suggested that we are able to identify and evaluate genes existing in public databases that will be of value to future wheat improvement.

Technical Abstract: To gain insights into the structure and function of the wheat genomes, we identified 278 ESTs related to abiotic stress among the 7671 ESTs previously mapped to wheat chromosomes. A BLASTX search found that of the 7671 ESTs, 4184 hit to the protein database Swiss Prot+TrEMBL and 278 (6.7 percent) of these could be linked to abiotic stress (heat, cold, drought, salinity, and aluminum). Of the 278 abiotic stress-related ESTs, 259 were assigned to chromosome deletion bins and analyzed for their distribution pattern among the seven homoeologous chromosome groups. Abiotic stress-related EST loci are not randomly scattered throughout the three genomes of hexaploid wheat. Abiotic stress-related proteins were located to chromosome regions, and bins of importance to particular stress responses were identified. Most of the mapped ESTs fell into the category of enzyme activity (28 percent) followed by binding activity (27 percent). The implications of the structural and functional organization of the abiotic stress-related ESTs were discussed.