Centromeric behaviour in wheat with high and low homoeologous chromosomal pairing

Control of homoeologous chromosomal pairing in hexaploid wheat stems from a balance between a number of suppressor and promoter genes. This study used centromeric behaviour as a tool to investigate the mechanism. Fluorescent in situ hybridization employing centromeric and telomeric sequences as probes was applied to pollen mother cells of wheat and wheat/alien hybrids having different pairing gene combinations. It showed: association of centromeres during pre-meiotic interphase; decondensation of centromeric structure; sister chromatid disjunction of univalent chromosomes in homoeologous pairing situations at anaphase I; and centromeric stretching between univalent sister chromatids in wheat/rye hybrids deficient for pairing genes. The implications of these results are discussed. Received: December 1996 / in revised form: 11 March 1997 / Accepted: 14 March 1997