Development of Hordeum chilense 4Hch introgression lines in durum wheat: a tool for breeders and complex trait analysis

With 3 figures and 2 tables The wild species Hordeum chilense Roem. et Schult is a valuable genetic resource for durum wheat breeding and genomic research. In this study, an interspecific cross, advanced backcrosses and consecutive selfing strategies were used to develop introgression lines of H. chilense chromosome 4Hch into durum wheat. It is the first time that H. chilense genomic introgressions were obtained in durum background. Substitutions and addition lines for H. chilense chromosome 4 into durum were generated. Alien chromosome segments were reduced in size by further spontaneous translocations between wheat and chromosome 4Hch. Hordeum chilense introgressions were identified in the durum background through several plant generations by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Development of these H. chilense introgression lines constitutes an important advance in durum breeding, proof of concept for the development of new H. chilense introgression lines in durum, and is a valuable tool for plant breeding.