A study of the role of gene TaMYB2 and an associated SNP in dehydration tolerance in common wheat.

The myeloblastosis oncogenes (MYB) are one of the important transcription factors that facilitate induction of various developmental and stress responsive genes. They are hence, emerging as key players in improving stress tolerance of plants in response to several abiotic stresses. Therefore, isolation and characterization of these genes, development of transgenics and functional molecular markers for useful alleles is central to various crop improvement programs. In this manuscript, we for the first time are reporting the identification of a synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism associated with dehydration tolerance at 458th bp (an A/G transition) in the TaMYB2 gene of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and development of an allele-specific marker (ASM) for dehydration tolerance for the same. Further we validated this TaMYB2-ASM in a core set of 28 wheat cultivars which can be used for marker-assisted selection for dehydration tolerance in plant breeding programs.