Cloning and Functional Analysis Agronomically Important Genes on Barley

Cultivars of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) showing a cleistogamous floret phenotype hold an ability to prevent the plants from infection of various invasive fungi, notably certain Fusarium ssp., and also greatly reduce the risk of gene flow through pollen dispersal. A single recessive gene cleistogamy 1 (cly1) encoding an APETLA2 (AP2) type protein determines the cleistogamy in barley. Within the cly1 gene, sequence variations at the miR172 target site are associated with the lodicule development and then the cleistogamous phenotype. An miRNA library from immature spikes of barley variety Morex is constructed and sequenced to characterize the interaction of miRNA with cly1 gene sequences and indetify the barley miR172 genes through sequence alignment against the Morex whole genome sequence for understanding of the regulation mechanisms on cly1 gene activity as well as its gene product, AP2 protein.