Polymorphism of Salinity Stress- Tolerance Related Genes and SSR Markers in Triticale

Dehydration-responsive element binding (DREB) proteins constitute a large family of transcription factors that regulate a large number of functional genes related to drought, high-salinity and low temperature. The present study was conducted to identify polymorphism of two Dreb genes and some microsatellite markers related to drought tolerance variation in triticale genotypes. The leaf tissues of 20 CIMMY-derived triticale (× Triticosecale Wittmack, 2n = 6x = 42, AABBRR) lines, 3 triticale cultivars (Sanabad, ET and Juaniloo), 3 wheat cultivars (Zarrin, Kavir and Shiraz) and 2 rye (Secale cereale, 2n = RR = 14) genotypes were used for DNA extraction. Four microsatellite (Xgwm291, Xgwm410, Xgwm2181 and Xgwm126) and two Dreb (DREB1 and DREB2) specific primers were used in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis and detecting polymorphism on agarose gel electrophoresis. In total, 35 alleles ranging from 130-850 bp were detected in 28 genotypes. Of these, 25 alleles were found for SSR markers and 10 alleles belonged to DREB1 and DREB2 genes. The number of alleles ranged from 3 to 9 with an average of 5 alleles per locus. The polymorphic information content (PIC) value provides information about allele diversity and frequency between genotypes that can be calculated on the basis of number of alleles amplified. The PIC values ranged from 0.51 (Xgwm291) to 0.77 (DREB1) with a mean of 0.68 that shows these markers are useful for survey of genetic variation among genotypes.