A PCR-based marker for targeting small rye segments in wheat background.

We attempted to develop a PCR-based marker that detects various segments of rye chromosome incorporated into wheat. We designed three sets of PCR primers based on the nucleotide sequence data of a rye repetitive sequence previously reported. One of the primer sets amplified a clear ca. 1.4 kb fragment in a rye cultivar but not in any form of wheat, diploid, tetraploid or hexaploid. We used this critical primer set for PCR of various wild species and cultivars of rye, an array of wheat plants carrying different rye chromosomes or small segments from different regions of rye chromosome 1R, and plants carrying parts of the rye B chromosome. The PCR amplified the 1.4 kb fragment in all the plant materials examined. We believe this PCR primer set will be useful as a universal PCR-based marker for the introgression of rye chromosome segments in the wheat genome.