The soft glumes of common wheat are sterile-lemmas as determined by the domestication gene Q

作     者：Gaoyuan Song Guoliang Sun Xingchen Kong Meiling Jia Ke Wang Xingguo Ye Yun Zhou Shuaifeng Geng Long Mao Aili Li 

作者机构：National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement Institute of Crop Sciences Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Collaborative Innovation Center of Crop Stress Biology Institute of Plant Stress Biology School of Life Science Henan University 

出 版 物：《The Crop Journal》 (作物学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2019年第7卷第1期

页      面：113-117页

核心收录：

学科分类：0710[理学-生物学] 09[农学] 0901[农学-作物学] 0902[农学-园艺学] 

基　　金：supported by the National Key Program for Transgenic Crop Cultivation (2016ZX09001-001) The CAAS Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program Cooperation and Innovation Mission (CAAS-XTCX2016) 

主　　题：Floret development Spike morphology Sterile lemma Wheat 

摘      要：The Q gene in common wheat encodes an APETALA2(AP2) transcription factor that causes the free threshing attribute. Wheat spikelets bearing several florets are subtended by a pair of soft glumes that allow free liberation of seeds. In wild species, the glumes are tough and rigid,making threshing difficult. However, the nature of these soft glumes, caused by the domestication allele Q is not clear. Here, we found that over expression of Q in common wheat leads to homeotic florets at glume positions. We provide phenotypic, microscopy, and marker genes evidence to demonstrate that the soft glumes of common wheat are in fact lemma-like organs, or so-called sterile-lemmas. By comparing the structures subtending spikelets in wheat and other crops such as rice and maize, we found that AP2 genes may play conserved functions in grasses by manipulating vestigial structures, such as floret-derived soft glumes in wheat and empty glumes in rice. Conversion of these seemingly vegetative organs to reproductive organs may be useful in yield improvement of crop species.