Abstract
BackgroundMulti-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) populations are a newly established tool to dissect quantitative traits. We developed the high resolution MAGIC wheat population WM-800, consisting of 910 F4:6 lines derived from intercrossing eight recently released European winter wheat cultivars.ResultsGenotyping WM-800 with 7849 SNPs revealed a low mean genetic similarity of 59.7% between MAGIC lines. WM-800 harbours distinct genomic regions exposed to segregation distortion. These are mainly located on chromosomes 2 to 6 of the wheat B genome where founder specific DNA segments were positively or negatively selected. This suggests adaptive selection of individual founder alleles during population development. The application of a genome-wide association study identified 14 quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling plant height in WM-800, including the known semi-dwarf genes Rht-B1 and Rht-D1 and a potentially novel QTL on chromosome 5A. Additionally, epistatic effects controlled plant height. For example, two loci on chromosomes 2B and 7B gave rise to an additive epistatic effect of 13.7 cm.ConclusionThe present study demonstrates that plant height in the MAGIC-WHEAT population WM-800 is mainly determined by large-effect QTL and di-genic epistatic interactions. As a proof of concept, our study confirms that WM-800 is a valuable tool to dissect the genetic architecture of important agronomic traits.
Highlights
Multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) populations are a newly established tool to dissect quantitative traits
We report on the new MAGIC winter wheat population WM-800
Phenotypic characterization of WM-800 For plant height, a high level of diversity was observed in population WM-800 displaying a range from 45.5 to 112.0 cm (Fig. 1, Table 1)
Summary
Multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) populations are a newly established tool to dissect quantitative traits. We developed the high resolution MAGIC wheat population WM-800, consisting of 910 F4:6 lines derived from intercrossing eight recently released European winter wheat cultivars. There is an increasing demand for large and Sannemann et al BMC Genomics (2018) 19:559 noteworthy designs, which were successfully used to study multi-parental populations, are nested association mapping (NAM) [3, 4] and multi-parent advanced generation intercrosses (MAGIC), the latter following a mating design according to Cavanagh et al [5]. The first was developed by inter-mating four Australian spring wheat cultivars pioneering the setup and statistical analysis of MAGIC populations in crops [11]. The NIAB MAGIC population was second, developed by intercrossing eight winter wheat founders selected to represent the diversity of the UK wheat germplasm [2]. The NIAB-MAGIC population was used to map genes regulating plant senescence in wheat [15]
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