Genome-Wide Association Study of Grain Number in Common Wheat From Shanxi Under Different Water Regimes.

Xingwei Zheng,Ye Liu,Naicui Wei,Bin Yang,Jun Zheng,Juanling Wang,Ling Qiao,Bangbang Wu,Jiajia Zhao

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.806295

Xingwei Zheng, Ye Liu + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.806295

Copy DOI

Abstract

Water availability is a crucial environmental factor on grain number in wheat, which is one of the important yield-related traits. In this study, a diverse panel of 282 wheat accessions were phenotyped for grain number per spike (GNS), spikelet number (SN), basal sterile spikelet number (BSSN), and apical sterile spikelet number (ASSN) under different water regimes across two growing seasons. Correlation analysis showed that GNS is significantly correlated with both SN and BSSN under two water regimes. A total of 9,793 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers from the 15 K wheat array were employed for genome-wide association study (GWAS). A total of 77 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) for investigated traits as well as 8 MTAs for drought tolerance coefficient (DTC) were identified using the mixed linear model. Favored alleles for breeding were inferred according to their estimated effects on GNS, based on the mean difference of varieties. Frequency changes in favored alleles associated with GNS in modern varieties indicate there is still considerable genetic potential for their use as markers for genome selection of GNS in wheat breeding.

Highlights

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most important crops globally, mainly grown in semiarid and arid regions of the world (Khan et al, 2019)
Wheat yield is determined by three factors, namely, spike number per unit area, grain number per spike (GNS), and thousand grain weight (TGW), which are important grain yield components (Shi et al, 2017)
After water regimes were changed to I1, the genotypes varied in GNS from 22.50 to 68.00, generated 16.80–26.20 spikelet number (SN), 0–7.6 basal sterile spikelet number (BSSN), 0–4.2 apical sterile spikelet number (ASSN), and weighted 21.50–54.95 g TGW

Summary

Introduction

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most important crops globally, mainly grown in semiarid and arid regions of the world (Khan et al, 2019). Wheat yield is determined by three factors, namely, spike number per unit area, grain number per spike (GNS), and thousand grain weight (TGW), which are important grain yield components (Shi et al, 2017). Recent studies have suggested that wheat grain yield is affected more by variation in GNS than by variation in grain size (Feng et al, 2018; Sakuma et al, 2019). GNS in wheat is determined by spikelet number and spikelet fertility, in addition to grain number per spikelet. Among these traits, spikelet number had higher heritability, whereas fertile spikelet number (SN) and grain number per spikelet were manipulatable with different environments.

Methods

Results

Conclusion