Screening and Selection of Drought-resistant Aegilops Triuncialis Accessions by Physiological and Molecular Markers

Abstract

The wheat straw fibers are cheap, easily attainable and environmentally friendly. However, the plant is susceptible to different biotic and abiotic stresses. Crop wild relatives (CWRs) are a suitable source of different characters such as tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses, for plant breeding. This study elucidates the association between DHNs and Dreb1 genes and physiological traits such as proline and relative water content (RWC) as well as some drought tolerance indices for identifying resistant Aegilops triuncialis populations to drought stress. Our results showed that populations collected from dry regions (Karaj and Tabriz) had higher proline, RWC and seed yield compared to other populations under drought stress. Also, the results revealed that the DHN15 primer produced a high level of genetic polymorphism compared to the other DHNs primers. According to the results of DHNs primers, the Ilam population was genetically diverse from the other populations. The present study demonstrated that the polymorphism revealed by the Dreb1 primer was higher than DHN primers. Therefore, the Dreb1 primer was more effective to distinguish drought-resistant Ae. triuncialis populations. Based on physiological and molecular analyses, Karaj and Tabriz populations were drought-resistant. Our finding suggested that further research on A. triuncialis would help pyramid the genetic traits to improve drought tolerance in common wheat.

Keywords

• rwc
• proline
• drought stress
• function markers
• wheat
• aegilops