Identification of a null allele at the Wx‐A1 locus in durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. ssp. durum Desf.)

With 3 figures and 1 table Abstract This work describes a novel null Wx-A1 allele detected in one cultivar and two breeding lines from a collection of 48 durum wheats from Argentina. The electrophoretic patterns of waxy proteins showed 45 accessions displaying Wx-A1 and Wx-B1 proteins and three accessions that lacked the Wx-A1 protein. Partial sequence of the Wx-A1 gene obtained from the three lines lacking the Wx-A1 protein showed a 1-bp deletion in exon 6 that produces a frameshift and a premature stop codon in the gene sequence. In addition, a PCR-RFLP marker suitable to detect the null Wx-A1 allele in segregating populations is described.