Development and assessment of DArT markers in triticale

Area of Science:

• Agronomy
• Plant Genetics
• Molecular Biology

Background:

• Triticale (X Triticosecale Wittm.), a wheat-rye hybrid, currently utilizes limited simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers.
• There is a need for high-throughput molecular markers to advance triticale's genetic understanding and exploitation.
• Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) offers high multiplexing capabilities for genetic marker development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate DArT markers specifically for triticale.
• To assess the polymorphism and information content of DArT markers derived from triticale, wheat, and rye.
• To analyze the genetic diversity and relationships within a collection of triticale accessions using DArT markers.

Main Methods:

• Development of novel triticale DArT markers and mining of existing wheat and rye DArT markers.
• Genotyping of 144 triticale accessions using three DArT arrays.
• Analysis of polymorphism levels, marker abundance, polymorphism information content (PIC), and correlation between similarity matrices.
• Cluster analysis to reveal genetic relationships among triticale accessions.

Main Results:

• Polymorphism levels for DArT markers ranged from 8.6% (wheat) to 23.8% (rye).
• Rye DArT markers were most abundant (3,109), followed by wheat (2,214) and triticale (719).
• Mean PIC values were 0.34 (rye) and 0.37 (triticale and wheat).
• High correlation was observed between similarity matrices, and cluster analysis aligned with known agronomic and pedigree data.

Conclusions:

• Developed triticale DArT markers, along with those from wheat and rye, are high-quality tools for diversity analysis.
• These DArT markers are suitable for various molecular breeding and genomics applications in triticale.
• The study provides valuable molecular resources to enhance triticale improvement strategies.