Abstract
BackgroundCharacterization of population structure and genetic diversity of germplasm is essential for the efficient organization and utilization of breeding material. The objectives of this study were to (i) explore the patterns of population structure in the pollen parent heterotic pool using different methods, (ii) investigate the genome-wide distribution of genetic diversity, and (iii) assess the extent and genome-wide distribution of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in elite sugar beet germplasm.ResultsA total of 264 and 238 inbred lines from the yield type and sugar type inbreds of the pollen parent heterotic gene pools, respectively, which had been genotyped with 328 SNP markers, were used in this study. Two distinct subgroups were detected based on different statistical methods within the elite sugar beet germplasm set, which was in accordance with its breeding history. MCLUST based on principal components, principal coordinates, or lapvectors had high correspondence with the germplasm type information as well as the assignment by STRUCTURE, which indicated that these methods might be alternatives to STRUCTURE for population structure analysis. Gene diversity and modified Roger's distance between the examined germplasm types varied considerably across the genome, which might be due to artificial selection. This observation indicates that population genetic approaches could be used to identify candidate genes for the traits under selection. Due to the fact that r2 >0.8 is required to detect marker-phenotype association explaining less than 1% of the phenotypic variance, our observation of a low proportion of SNP loci pairs showing such levels of LD suggests that the number of markers has to be dramatically increased for powerful genome-wide association mapping.ConclusionsWe provided a genome-wide distribution map of genetic diversity and linkage disequilibrium for the elite sugar beet germplasm, which is useful for the application of genome-wide association mapping in sugar beet as well as the efficient organization of germplasm.
Highlights
Characterization of population structure and genetic diversity of germplasm is essential for the efficient organization and utilization of breeding material
In principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) based on modified Rogers distance (MRD) estimates between all pairs of sugar beet inbreds, the first two principal coordinates explained 23.2% and 5.5% of the molecular variance
When the number of principal components (PC) was higher than 50, the number of subgroups started to vary again (Additional file 4). The explanation for this observation is unclear and requires further research. These findings suggested that determining the number of subgroups using MCLUST applied to PC, PCo, or lapvector is not straight forward and requires careful consideration of the numbers of dimensions used for the analyses
Summary
Characterization of population structure and genetic diversity of germplasm is essential for the efficient organization and utilization of breeding material. The objectives of this study were to (i) explore the patterns of population structure in the pollen parent heterotic pool using different methods, (ii) investigate the genome-wide distribution of genetic diversity, and (iii) assess the extent and genome-wide distribution of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in elite sugar beet germplasm. Vulgaris) is a member of the family Amaranthaceae [1] It is an important crop for sucrose production in the temperate climate zone, which accounts for about one quarter to one third of the worldwide sugar production [2]. The relatively independent development of these different types of germplasm through decades might have resulted in divergent populations. Such information, is not available for sugar beet
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
