Physical mapping of wheat aquaporin genes

Aquaporins are water channel proteins that control the flow of water across cellular membranes and play vital roles in all aspects of plant-water relations. Our previous identification of 35 wheat PIP and TIP aquaporin genes showed they formed a large family with many conserved features that are thought to be important in structure and function. The present work focussed on determining the positions of these genes in the wheat genome in order to help investigate their functions in water uptake and transport. Genomic locations of wheat PIPs and TIPs were predicted using a number of reported rice-wheat comparative maps and additional in silico approaches. Physical mapping of select genes utilising aneuploid stocks and progenitor DNAs placed these on chromosomes 2B, 2D, 6B and 7B and helped to clarify the individual genes and homoeologues. The compilation of all in silico and physical mapping work confirmed many of the orthologous relationships between wheat and rice and/or barley genes, and synteny in the related areas of genome. These results further reinforce that wheat PIP and TIP proteins are most likely to have similar functions to those closely related in rice, including water permeability and abiotic stress response, and provide important tools for future investigations into the involvement of this complex gene family in traits related to plant-water relations and osmotic stress response.