Grain Protein Content (GPC) is an important determinant of grain quality in many crops, including barley and wheat. Recently, the map-based cloning of Gpc-B1, a wheat GPC quantitative trait locus (QTL), revealed a NAC transcription factor (TtNAM-B1) that was associated with increased grain protein, zinc, and iron content. In barley, a QTL for GPC was identified in a segregating population developed from a cross between 'Karl' (low GPC) and 'Lewis' (average GPC). This QTL was mapped near marker hvm74 on chromosome 6H and was suggested as a potential orthologue for Gpc-B1 on chromosome arm 6BS. In the current study, wheat genes that were previously mapped within a 0.8 cM segment spanning the TtNAM-B1 gene were converted into barley molecular markers. These new markers, together with the barley TtNAM-B1 orthologous gene (designated HvNAM-1 hereafter) were mapped on a 0.7 cM interval encompassing the peak of the barley QTL for GPC on chromosome arm 6HS. Sequence comparison of HvNAM-1 parental alleles showed two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that result in two amino acid differences. Analysis of the allelic variation in a wild and cultivated barley collection revealed that the Karl haplotype was present only in nine out of 147 tested accessions. The colinearity between the wheat and barley GPC regions and the low frequency of the HvNAM-1 haplotype associated with low GPC suggest that the barley NAC transcription factor is responsible for the GPC QTL on barley chromosome 6H.

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) possesses a large and highly repetitive genome of 5.1 Gb that has hindered the development of a complete sequence. In 2012, the International Barley Sequencing Consortium released a resource integrating whole-genome shotgun sequences with a physical and genetic framework. However, because only 6278 bacterial artificial chromosome (BACs) in the physical map were sequenced, fine structure was limited. To gain access to the gene-containing portion of the barley genome at high resolution, we identified and sequenced 15 622 BACs representing the minimal tiling path of 72 052 physical-mapped gene-bearing BACs. This generated ~1.7 Gb of genomic sequence containing an estimated 2/3 of all Morex barley genes. Exploration of these sequenced BACs revealed that although distal ends of chromosomes contain most of the gene-enriched BACs and are characterized by high recombination rates, there are also gene-dense regions with suppressed recombination. We made use of published map-anchored sequence data from Aegilops tauschii to develop a synteny viewer between barley and the ancestor of the wheat D-genome. Except for some notable inversions, there is a high level of collinearity between the two species. The software HarvEST:Barley provides facile access to BAC sequences and their annotations, along with the barley-Ae. tauschii synteny viewer. These BAC sequences constitute a resource to improve the efficiency of marker development, map-based cloning, and comparative genomics in barley and related crops. Additional knowledge about regions of the barley genome that are gene-dense but low recombination is particularly relevant.