Grain yield in wheat is mostly governed prior to flowering during primordia development. Mature primordia development, floret fertility, and maximum grain number per spikelet are the three most important characteristics of spike development. The genes involved in primordia formation, on the other hand, have remained unclear. Here, we demonstrate molecular characterization of Triticum aestivum MARCH9 (TraesCS7A01G283700) which encodes RING domain, might play a positively regulating primordium and floret development until anthesis stages. TaMARCH9 expression level was highly induced at differentiation stages (WS 3-6) in Yeongkwang cultivar. TaMARCH9 exhibited ubiquitination activities and was localized to the plasma membrane using a transient expression system in tobacco. Moreover, overexpression of TaMARCH9 in Arabidopsis plant displayed early flowering phenotypes compared to wild-type. Some of flowering related genes such as FLC, MAF, FT and SOC were highly induced in TaMARCH9- overexpressing Arabidopsis plants. Our finding suggested that TaMARCH9 may act a key role in the formation of floret primordium development and/or flowering time in wheat.

Common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and durum wheat (T. turgidum L. subsp. Durum) are major staple food crops in the world. However, their production are limited by environmental stress such as drought. In order to evaluate wheat’s response to drought, a total of 77 common wheat and durum wheat consisted of 19 Korean common wheat, 30 Tunisian common wheat and 28 Tunisian durum wheat were used in this study. Drought stress was applied for 21 days by suspending water application starting at the third leaf-expansion stage, followed by watering for the recovery of wheat until harvesting. Phenotypic parameters such as plant height, leaf length, tiller number, chlorophyll content, days to flowering and dry weight were scored during and after the treatment. Drought tolerance trait index (DTTI) and drought tolerance index (DTI) were calculated and used as criteria for selection of drought tolerance. At the end of treatment, most of the parameters except tiller numbers significantly decreased. Even after re-watering, plant height, leaf length, and dry weight continuously decreased. However, leaf chlorophyll content, and days to flowering of both stressed and non-stressed plants showed no significant differences. A total of 17 drought tolerance related simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers were used to identify genetic distance between Korean and Tunisian cultivars and elucidate possible use of marker systems for drought resistance. The common wheat and durum wheat cultivars formed different clusters for drought tolerance (resistance, moderate resistance, susceptible) using the SSR data. The results obtained in this study could help to increase genetic resources and breeding program for drought tolerance.

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Vacuolar proteins are associated with various functions, such as germination and programmed cell death (PCD) activity. Precursors of most vacuolar proteins are synthesized in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (rough ER). They are transported to the vacuoles, and converted into the mature forms. Vacuolar processing enzyme (VPE) is responsible for maturation of vacuolar proteins. Intensive studies revealed that VPE-mediated system is important for vacuolar functions in plant. However, the role and mechanism of VPE still remain to be elucidated, especially in wheat. Here, we isolated three putative wheat VPE genes which were designated as TaVPE2, 3 and 4. To investigate the expression of TaVPEs, RT-PCR was conducted using RNAs extracted from caryopsis, pericarp, leaf and/or stem tissues at seed development stage and leaf, stem and/or root of seedling with phytohormone or abiotic stress treatment. Transcript accumulation of TaVPEs including TaVPE1 was displayed in caryopsis during seed development stage. TaVPE1, TaVPE2 and TaVPE3 were expressed in root under abiotic stress whereas they showed no or very weak expression pattern in other tissue. Promoter region of TaVPEs contain many environmental-associated and tissue-specific cis-elements. In fact, VPEs sensitively responded to certain treatment condition. TaVPEs belong to seed type VPE in phylogenetic grouping. However, expression pattern of TaVPEs is different from other seed type VPEs. The classification into vegetative and seed type VPE according to gene expression patterns cannot be applied to TaVPEs.

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• Indications of programmed cell death in wheat roots upon exposure to silver nanoparticles
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