Abstract
Root system architecture is crucial for wheat adaptation to drought stress, but phenotyping for root traits in breeding programmes is difficult and time-consuming owing to the belowground characteristics of the system. Identifying quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and linked molecular markers and using marker-assisted selection is an efficient way to increase selection efficiency and boost genetic gains in breeding programmes. Hundreds of QTLs have been identified for different root traits in the last few years. In the current study, consensus QTL regions were identified through QTL meta-analysis. First, a consensus map comprising 7352 markers was constructed. For the meta-analysis, 754 QTLs were retrieved from the literature and 634 of them were projected onto the consensus map. Meta-analysis grouped 557 QTLs in 94 consensus QTL regions, or meta-QTLs (MQTLs), and 18 QTLs remained as singletons. The recently published genome sequence of wheat was used to search for gene models within the MQTL peaks. As a result, gene models for 68 of the 94 Root_MQTLs were found, 35 of them related to root architecture and/or drought stress response. This work will facilitate QTL cloning and pyramiding to develop new cultivars with specific root architecture for coping with environmental constraints.
Highlights
Wheat is the most widely cultivated crop in the world, providing humans with about 18% of their daily intake of calories and 20% of their protein
The present study reports the results of the largest QTL meta-analysis conducted for root traits in wheat
The role of root architecture in the response to drought stress has been reported by several authors[3,29,30,31,32]
Summary
Wheat is the most widely cultivated crop in the world, providing humans with about 18% of their daily intake of calories and 20% of their protein (http://faostat.fao.org/). These studies identified hundreds of QTLs in different mapping populations with different types of markers. In order to identify consensus QTL regions in the genome, Goffinet and Gerber[7] developed QTL meta-analysis. This method allows results of independent QTL studies to be integrated in a consensus or reference map. The main objective of the study was to produce a repository of root QTL information to define consensus regions controlling root architecture in wheat
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