Genomic manning of defense response genes in wheat

Defense response (DR) genes are a broad class involved in plant defense. In this study we mapped 36 probes representing seven classes of defense response genes. This collection of probes represents genes involved in the hypersensitive response (HR), pathogenesis-related (PR) genes, genes for the flavonoid metabolic pathway, genes encoding proline/glycine-rich proteins, ion channel regulators, lipoxygenase, lectin, and others. Using nullisomic-tetrasomic lines of 'Chinese Spring', we were able to assign at least 167 loci to the 21 chromosomes of wheat. Homoeologous group 7 chromosomes possessed the most DR loci followed by group 2. Sixty-two loci were placed on existing genetic linkage maps of wheat. Map locations indicated that the DR gene loci are not randomly distributed throughout the wheat genome, but rather are located in clusters and/or in distal gene-rich regions of the chromosomes. Knowledge of the chromosomal locations and genome organization of DR genes will be useful for candidate gene analysis of quantitative trait loci.