Abstract
Significant QTL for sucrose concentration have been identified using a historical soybean genomic panel, which could aid in the development of food-grade soybean cultivars. Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) is a crop of global importance for both human and animal consumption, which was domesticated in China more than 6000years ago. A concern about losing genetic diversity as a result of decades of breeding has been expressed by soybean researchers. In order to develop new cultivars, it is critical for breeders to understand the genetic variability present for traits of interest in their program germplasm. Sucrose concentration is becoming an increasingly important trait for the production of soy-food products. The objective of this study was to use a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify putative QTL for sucrose concentration in soybean seed. A GWAS panel consisting of 266 historic and current soybean accessions was genotyped with 76k genotype-by-sequencing (GBS) SNP data and phenotyped in four field locations in Ontario (Canada) from 2015 to 2017. Seven putative QTL were identified on chromosomes 1, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13 and 14. A key gene related to sucrose synthase (Glyma.06g182700) was found to be associated with the QTL located on chromosome 6. This information will facilitate efforts to increase the available genetic variability for sucrose concentration in soybean breeding programs and develop new and improved high-sucrose soybean cultivars suitable for the soy-food industry.
Highlights
A positive correlation between sucrose concentration and oil is valuable information for breeders looking to increase certain agronomic and seed traits. This has corroborated earlier published work regarding the relationship between sucrose concentration and oil (Carter and Hopper 1942; Hymowitz et al 1972)
Soybean is one of the major crops of economic importance, and because of this, it is key that breeders continue to find ways to manipulate the genetic variation that is available to them to continue developing new cultivars with superior traits
It is possible that the sucrose quantitative trait loci (QTL) was located in a region with a genomic selection signature related to adaptation to Ontario
Summary
Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) is a crop of global importance for both human and animal consumption It is used largely as a source of protein meal and vegetable oil, and has a number of industrial uses, such as biofuels (Hartman et al 2011; Qiu et al 2013). Soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) is a widely grown oilseed crop around the world It is used primarily for its oil and protein; sucrose and overall sugar content has become an increasingly important trait for breeders, especially for its use in soy-derived food products. A number of food-grade soybean cultivars are being grown in Canada, the future development of higher sucrose cultivars is dependent on a number of factors
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