W088: Impacts of the Durum Wheat Genome Outputs for Breeding

Triticum turgidum tetraploid wheat species, with wild emmer ssp. dicoccoides, domesticated emmer ssp. dicoccum and durum wheat (ssp. durum) is a cornerstone of the wheat polyploidy complex. Durum wheat is one of the most important cereals for Mediterranean and other countries with semi-arid environments. Tetraploid genetic resources are highly valuable for the genetic improvement of common wheat, as highlighted by the wide development and use of synthetic wheats. Until now, durum wheat molecular genetics and genomics have largely relied on common wheat molecular tools. In 2016, following the assembly of the T. dicoccoides genome, an international consortium has generated a high-quality reference sequence of the modern durum wheat cultivar Svevo (270x) based on the NR-Gene DeNovoMAGICTM assembly pipeline. Additionally 15 high-density linkage maps based on the 90K SNP array are used to further anchoring and to explore the QTLome of tetraploid wheat through GWAS and meta-QTL analysis. Here, we present preliminary results of the use of the three wheat genome assemblies (CS, Zavitan and Svevo) to explore the gene content of chromosome regions harboring loci relevant for: (i) cadmium accumulation in grains (Cdu1, in chromosome 5B), grain yield (QYld.idw-3B), root growth angle QTL (QRga.ubo-6A) and for resistance to Soil-borne mosaic virus (Sbm2, in chromosome 2B).