To investigate allelic variation of Myb10-1 genes in Chinese wheat and to examine its association with germination level in wheat, a total of 582 Chinese bread wheat cultivars and 110 Aegilops tauschii accessions were used to identify allelic variations of three Myb10-1 genes. Identification results indicated that there is a novel Tamyb10-B1 allele, designated Tamyb10-B1c, in the five Chinese landraces. The Tamyb10-B1c possibly has a large deletion including Tamyb10-B1 gene. There are three novel Tamyb10-D1 alleles (Aetmyb10-D1c, Aetmyb10-D1d and Aetmyb10-D1e) that were discovered in Aegilops tauschii. Of them, Aetmyb10-D1c allele possessed a 104-bp deletion and this resulted in a frame shift in the open reading frame of the Aetmyb10-D1 gene. AETMYB10-D1d and AETMYB10-D1e proteins possessed three and two different amino acids when compared with TAMYB10-D1b protein, respectively. Association of Tamyb10-1 allelic variation with grain germination level indicated that all five allelic combinations with red grains showed a significantly higher GP (germination percentage) and GI (germination index) values than those of white-grained Tamyb10-A1a/Tamyb10-B1a/Tamyb10-D1a genotype after storing it for one year. Moreover, the Tamyb10-A1b/Tamyb10-B1c/Tamyb10-D1b genotype possesses the significantly highest GP and GI among the six different Tamyb10-1 combinations. This study could provide useful information for wheat breeding programme in terms of grain colour and germination level.

Small auxin-up RNA (SAUR) genes are important gene families in auxin signalling transduction and are commonly used asearly auxin responsive markers. Till date, no SAUR gene is identified in Urticales plants despite of the published bioinforma-tion of mulberry, hemp and ramie. In this study, we used Arabidopsis sequences as query to search against mulberry, hempgenomes and ramie transcriptome database. In total, we obtained 62, 56 and 71 SAUR genes in mulberry, hemp and ramie,respectively. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the Urticales specific expansion of SAUR genes. Expression analysis showed 15randomly selected ramie SAUR genes that were diversely functioned in ramie tissues and revealed a series of IAA-responsive,drought-responsive and high temperature-responsive genes. Moreover, comparison of qRT-PCR data and previous RNA-Seqdata suggested the reliability of our work. In this study, we first report the identification of SAUR genes in Urticales plants.These results will provide a foundation for their function validation in Urticales plant growth and development.