Gene evolution at the ends of wheat chromosomes

Wheat ESTs mapped to deletion bins in the distal 42% of the long arm of chromosome 4B (4BL) were ordered in silico, based on BLASTN homology against rice pseudochromosome 3. The ESTs spanned 29 cM on the short arm of rice chromosome 3, which is known to be syntenic to long arms of group-4 chromosomes of wheat. Fine-scale deletion-bin and genetic mapping revealed that 83% of ESTs were syntenic between wheat and rice, a far higher level of synteny than previously reported, and 6% were nonsyntenic (not located on rice chromosome 3). One inversion spanning a 5-cM region in rice and three deletion bins in wheat was identified. The remaining 11% of wheat ESTs showed no sequence homology in rice and mapped to the terminal 5% of the wheat chromosome 4BL. In this region, 27% of ESTs were duplicated, and it accounted for 70% of the recombination in the 4BL arm. Globally in wheat, no sequence homology ESTs mapped to the terminal bins, and ESTs rarely mapped to interstitial chromosomal regions known to be recombination hot spots. The wheat-rice comparative genomics analysis indicated that gene evolution occurs preferentially at the ends of chromosomes, driven by duplication and divergence associated with high rates of recombination.