Detecting the High Tocopherol Content Haplotype in Barley 
Using Marker-Assisted Selection

                                                        Alina Gabriela Turcu, Liliana Vasilescu, Eugen Petcu, Daniel Cristina, 
Elena-Laura Conţescu, Matilda Ciucă

Institutul Național de Cercetare-Dezvoltare Agricolă Fundulea

Keywords: barley, KASP, vitamin E, HPT-7H, SNP.

 Abstract: Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is a major feed and is the richest grain source of functional ingredients being the most abundant species for functional food crops (dietary fiber and antioxidant substances – such as polyphenols and vitamin E). Vitamin E represents a group of compounds that include tocopherols and tocotrienols.
The recent studies allowed the identification of two genes: homogentisate phytyltransferase (HPT-7H) and homogentisate geranylgeranyltransferase (HGGT) that are involved in the synthesis of tocopherols in leaves and tocotrienols in grains, respectively. HPT-7H gene presents two haplotypes “low tocopherol content” and “high tocopherol content”, the difference was highlighted by marker SCRI_RS_225155, at SNP (C/T). The allele with SNP-C was associated with high tocopherol content in leaves of barley and SNP-T was associated with low tocopherol content. The aim of this study was to detect the favorable allele of the HPT-7H gene, associated with high tocopherol content. The detection of favorable alleles of the HPT-7H gene was achieved using the KASP technique (Competitive Allele-Specific PCR). In this study, were analyzed 50 barley genotypes and the favorable haplotype was detected in 35 lines. This result opens perspectives of breeding for improvement of functional ingredients in the barley grains. Also, this study proves the value of MAS (Marker Assisted Selection) breeding strategy, for the improvement of barley quality.