Exploiting the diversity of Viviparous-1 gene associated with pre-harvest sprouting tolerance in European wheat varieties

Pre-harvest sprouting (PHS) reduces the quality of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and the economic value of the grain. The objective of this study was to evaluate the diversity of the Viviparous-1B (Vp-1B) gene associated with PHS tolerance in a collection of 490 widely grown winter wheat varieties from central and northern Europe. Four alleles of Vp-1B were found in the wheat varieties tested, three of which (Vp-1Ba, Vp-1Bb and Vp-1Bc) had previously been identified in Chinese wheat varieties. The fourth was a new allele which had a 25-bp of deletion in the third intron region compared with the nucleotide sequence of Vp-1Ba, and was designated as Vp-1Bd. The frequencies of different alleles in this set of European wheat germplasm were: Vp-1Ba (54%) > Vp-1Bc (21%) > Vp-1Bd (20%) > Vp-1Ba + c (4%) > Vp-1Bb (1%), with Vp-1Bb being present only in two French varieties, ‘Altria’ and ‘Recital’. In addition, the frequencies of the alleles differed in varieties from different European countries. For example, Vp-1Ba had the highest frequency (76%) in varieties included in the UK National List (NL), but was least frequent in the Recommended List (RL) of Sweden (19%). Similarly, Vp-1Bc was present with the highest frequency (58%) in wheat varieties from Sweden, and the lowest in UK NL varieties (8%) while Vp-1Bd had the highest frequency of 32% in German varieties, and the lowest in Sweden varieties with only 8%. The Vp-1Ba allele was present in over half of the UK wheat varieties tested but the frequency was lower in RL varieties than in NL ones. Furthermore, heterogeneities were found between Vp-1Ba and Vp-1Bc in the varieties from Sweden, Netherlands, Germany and UK.