Homoeologous cloning of ω-secalin gene family in a wheat 1BL/1RS translocation

Wheat 1BL/1RS translocations are widely planted in China as well as in most of the wheat producing area in the world for their good qualities of disease resistance and high yield. 1BL/1RS translocations are however poor in bread making, partially caused by a family of small monomeric proteins, ω-secalins, which are encoded by genes on 1RS. Based on published sequence of a rye ω-secalin gene we designed a pair of primers to cover the whole mature protein coding sequence. A major band could be amplified from 1BL/1RS translocations but not from euploid wheat. Using this primer set we conducted PCR amplification by using high fidelity Pfu polymerase on the genomic DNAs and cDNAs purified from a 1BL/1RS translocation Lankao 906. Sequencing analysis indicated that this gene family contains several mem- bers of 1150 bp, 1076 bp, 1075 bp, 1052 bp and 1004 bp genes, including two pseudogenes and three active genes. The gene transcripts were differentially expressed in developing seeds.