Chromosomal rearrangements in wheat: their types and distribution

Four hundred and sixty polyploid wheat accessions and 39 triticale forms from 37 countries of Europe, Asia, and USA were scored by C-banding for the presence of translocations. Chromosomal rearrangements were detected in 70 of 208 accessions of tetraploid wheat, 69 of 252 accessions of hexaploid wheat, and 3 of 39 triticale forms. Altogether, 58 types of major chromosomal rearrangements were identified in the studied material; they are discussed relative to 11 additional translocation types described by other authors. Six chromosome modifications of unknown origin were also observed. Among all chromosomal aberrations identified in wheat, single translocations were the most frequent type (39), followed by multiple rearrangements (9 types), pericentric inversions (9 types), and paracentric inversions (3 types). According to C-banding analyses, the breakpoints were located at or near the centromere in 60 rearranged chromosomes, while in 52 cases they were in interstitial chromosome regions. In the latter case, translocation breakpoints were often located at the border of C-bands and the euchromatin region or between two adjacent C-bands; some of these regions seem to be translocation “hotspots”. Our results and data published by other authors indicate that the B-genome chromosomes are involved in translocations most frequently, followed by the A- and D-genome chromosomes; individual chromosomes also differ in the frequencies of translocations. Most translocations were detected in 1 or 2 accessions, and only 11 variants showed relatively high frequencies or were detected in wheat varieties of different origins or from different species. High frequencies of some translocations with a very restricted distribution could be due to a “bottleneck effect”. Other types seem to occur independently and their broad distribution can result from selective advantages of rearranged genotypes in diverse environmental conditions. We found significant geographic variation in the spectra and frequencies of translocation in wheat: the highest proportions of rearranged genotypes were found in Central Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and France. A low proportion of aberrant genotypes was characteristic of tetraploid wheat from Transcaucasia and hexaploid wheat from Middle Asia and Eastern Europe.