Abstract
The aluminum (Al) tolerance phenotype observed in a set of near-isogenic wheat lines is encoded by a single genetic locus designated Alt1. The Alt1 locus also segregates with the Al-triggered efflux of malate from root tips. We previously described the isolation of a wheat gene (ALMT1) which encodes for an Al-activated malate transporter. There are two alleles of ALMT1 (ALMT1-1 and ALMT1-2), which differ at 6 nucleotides and result in the deduced proteins differing at 2 amino acid residues. We report here that ALMT1-1 co-segregates with the Al tolerance phenotype in F2 and F3 populations derived from crosses between near-isogenic wheat lines that vary in Al tolerance. These results strongly suggest that the ALMT1-1 gene is identical with the Alt1. To ensure that the ALMT1 gene is Al-tolerance gene, the construction and analyses of transgenic plants (e.g. Arabidopsis and tobacco) with ALMT1-1 are now in progress.
