Development of a TILLING resource in durum wheat for reverse- and forward-genetic analyses

A durum wheat TILLING (targeting induced local lesions in genomes) population of 2601 M3 families was developed from cv. Svevo using ethyl methanesulfonate as a chemical mutagen. The entire M3 population was field-grown for phenotypic evaluations. Despite the polyploid nature of the wheat genome, a preliminarily phenotypic screening showed a high frequency of morphological alterations (~22%); specific phenotyping for seed morphology was undertaken. Furthermore, a reverse-genetics experiment was performed on DNA collected from M2 leaves for the homoeologous genes SBEIIa-A and SBEIIa-B involved in starch metabolism. One non-sense mutation for both genes was identified; specific crosses are planned in order to pyramid the two mutations.