Background
The wheat dwarfing gene improves lodging resistance, and increases the grain number per spike and harvest index. Dwarf polish wheat (Triticum polonicum L., 2n = 4x = 28, AABB, DPW), initially collected from Tulufan, Xinjiang, China, carries a semi-dwarfing gene Rht-dp on chromosome 4BS. However, Rht-dp and its dwarfing mechanism are unknown.
Results
Homologous cloning and fine mapping revealed that Rht-dp is the ‘Green Revolution’ gene Rht-B1b. A haplotype analysis showed that Rht-B1b was only present in T. polonicum. Transcriptomic analysis of two pairs of near-isogenic lines (NILs) of DPW × TPW revealed 41 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) as potential dwarfism-related genes. Among them, 28 functionally annotated DEGs were classed into five sub-groups: hormone-related signalling transduction genes, transcription factor genes, cell wall structure-related genes, reactive oxygen-related genes, and nitrogen regulation-related genes.
Conclusions
These results indicated that Rht-dp is Rht-B1b, which regulates pathways related to hormones, reactive oxygen species, and nitrogen assimilation to modify the cell wall structure, and then limits cell wall loosening and inhibits cell elongation, thereby causing dwarfism in DPW.