Abstract
A worldwide food shortage has been projected as a result of the current increase in global population and climate change. In order to provide sufficient food to feed more people, we must develop crops that can produce higher yields. Plant early vigor traits, early growth rate (EGR), early plant height (EPH), inter-node length, and node count are important traits that are related to crop yield. Glycine soja, the wild counterpart to cultivated soybean, Glycine max, harbors much higher genetic diversity and can grow in diverse environments. It can also cross easily with cultivated soybean. Thus, it holds a great potential in developing soybean cultivars with beneficial agronomic traits. In this study, we used 225 wild soybean accessions originally from diverse environments across its geographic distribution in East Asia. We quantified the natural variation of several early vigor traits, investigated the relationships among them, and dissected the genetic basis of these traits by applying a Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) with genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. Our results showed positive correlation between all early vigor traits studied. A total of 12 SNPs significantly associated with EPH were identified with 4 shared with EGR. We also identified two candidate genes, Glyma.07G055800.1 and Glyma.07G055900.1, playing important roles in influencing trait variation in both EGR and EPH in G. soja.
Highlights
The cultivated soybean, Glycine max, is an important legume crop that supplies the majority of protein meal and oilseed worldwide [1]
This study aims to make use of a cutting-edge quantitative trait loci discovery method to dissect the genetic basis of agronomically beneficial traits, early growth rate (EGR) and early plant height (EPH), and their relationships to inter-node length and node count to further crop-improvement techniques
All trait relationships studied on 225 ecotypes of G. soja, inter-node length to node count, inter-node length to EGR, inter-node length to EPH, node count to EPH, node count to EGR, and EGR to EPH, expressed significant positive correlations, p < 0.001, by Spearman’s correlation test (Table 1)
Summary
The cultivated soybean, Glycine max, is an important legume crop that supplies the majority of protein meal and oilseed worldwide [1]. Growth rate (EGR) and early plant height (EPH) are further analyzed for genotypic dissection using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). These traits have not been studied or used for genetic association in wild soybean far. To our knowledge, using G. soja to study early vigor phenotypic traits, such as early growth rate, early plant height, node count, and inter-node length, has never been reported. This study aims to make use of a cutting-edge quantitative trait loci discovery method to dissect the genetic basis of agronomically beneficial traits, EGR and EPH, and their relationships to inter-node length and node count to further crop-improvement techniques
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