Characterization of Iranian Accessions of Aegilpos crassa Boiss. Using Flow Cytometry and Protein Analysis

In this study, 120 accessions of Aegilops crassa collected from various geographical areas of Iran were analyzed with respect to genome size and protein markers. A flow cytometry survey of these accessions revealed that one hundred and thirteen of the accessions were tetraploid and seven were hexaploid. Moreover, these accessions revealed variations in high molecular weight glutenin subunit compositions. In most accessions, subunits showing electrophoretic mobility similar to that of Dy12 were present. Eleven allelic variants were observed in Glu-D1 locus with the highest (30.90%) and the lowest allele (0.5%) frequencies in 3+12 and 2+10 variants, respectively. Among 17 bands selected for MALDI-TOF-TOF-MS analysis only 6 bands were identified with high probability and 11 of them had no MS/MS data. The results showed that Iranian accessions of Ae. crassa formed an interesting source of favorable glutenin subunits that might be very desirable in breeding programs for improving bread wheat quality.