Dynamics of tandem repetitive Afa-family sequences in Triticeae, wheat-related species

The Afa-family sequences in wheat-related species, Triticeae, are tandem repetitive sequences of 340 bp. All the analyzed Triticeae species carried the sequences in their genomes, though the copy numbers varied about 100-fold among the species. The nucleotide fragments amplified by PCR were cloned and sequenced, and their behavior in the evolution of Triticeae was analyzed by the neighbor-joining (NJ) method. The sequences in genomes with many copies of this family clustered at independent branches of the phylogenic tree, whereas the sequences in genomes with a few copies did not. This may suggest that Afa-family sequences had amplified several times in the evolution of Triticeae, each using a limited number of different master copies. In addition, the sequences of the A and B genomes of hexaploid common wheat indicated that the Afa-family sequences had not evolved in a concerted manner between the genomes. Furthermore, the sequences of each chromosome of the D genome of this species indicated that the sequences had amplified on all over the D-genome chromosomes in a short period.