Pregnane derivatives such as pregnenolone or progesterone and many other metabolites are important in mammals where many of them act as hormones including sexual hormones. Much less is known about the presence and functions of pregnane derivatives in plants. The main objectives of this work were (1) to determine the presence of pregnane derivatives in winter wheat (2) verify if there are changes of concentration of pregnane derivatives during wheat growth/development with special attention to vernalisation process (3) to answer the question of whether selected pregnane derivatives are stimulators of wheat development and whether the potential stimulation of this development is accompanied by the expression of the Vrn1 (Vernalisation1) gene. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report that demonstrates the presence of pregnenolone and 5α-dihydroprogesterone in the leaves and intact crowns of winter wheat. The levels of some of the pregnane derivatives changed during plant growth/development, it was demonstrated that pregnenolone, pregnanolone and 17α-hydroxypregnenolone stimulated wheat development. The changes in the Vrn1 expression are discussed in light of the stimulation of generative development by the pregnane derivatives.

Department of Bioenergetics Food Analysis and Microbiology Institute of Food Technology and Nutrition College of Natural Science Rzeszów University Ćwiklińskiej 2D Rzeszów 35 601 Poland

Department of Plant Breeding Physiology and Seed Science University of Agriculture in Kraków Podłużna 3 Kraków 30 239 Poland

Laboratory of Growth Regulators Institute of Experimental Botany The Czech Academy of Sciences and Palacký University Šlechtitelů 27 Olomouc CZ 77900 Czech Republic

The Franciszek Górski Institute of Plant Physiology Polish Academy of Sciences Niezapominajek 21 Kraków 30 239 Poland

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