Abstract
Wheat is one of the important staple crops as the resources of both food and micronutrient for most people of the world. However, the levels of micronutrients (especially Fe and Zn) in common wheat are inherently low. Biofortification is an effective way to increase the micronutrient concentration of wheat. Wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides, AABB, 2n = 4x = 28) is an important germplasm resource for wheat micronutrients improvement. In the present study, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed to characterize grain iron, zinc, and manganese concentration (GFeC, GZnC, and GMnC) in 161 advanced lines derived from wild emmer. Using both the general linear model and mixed linear model, we identified 14 high-confidence significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) that were associated with GFeC, GZnC, and GMnC of which nine MTAs were novel. Six MTAs distributed on chromosomes 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, and 7B were significantly associated with GFeC. Three MTAs on 1A and 2A were significantly associated with GZnC and five MTAs on 1B were significantly associated with GMnC. These MTAs show no negative effects on thousand kernel weight (TKW), implying the potential value for simultaneous improvement of micronutrient concentrations and TKW in breeding. Meanwhile, the GFeC, GZnC and GMnC are positively correlated, suggesting that these traits could be simultaneously improved. Genotypes containing high-confidence MTAs and 61 top genotypes with a higher concentration of grain micronutrients were recommended for wheat biofortification breeding. A total of 38 candidate genes related to micronutrient concentrations were identified. These candidates can be classified into four main groups: enzymes, transporter proteins, MYB transcription factor, and plant defense responses proteins. The MTAs and associated candidate genes provide essential information for wheat biofortification breeding through marker-assisted selection (MAS).
Highlights
Mineral elements are essential micronutrients for animals and human beings
Our findings demonstrate the improvement of grain micronutrient concentrations (GFeC, GZnC, and GMnC) without sacrificing grain yield could be possible by the exploitation of wild emmer marker-trait associations (MTAs)
Our results show the importance of wild emmer as valuable germplasm for the improvement of grain micronutrient concentrations in wheat
Summary
Mineral elements are essential micronutrients for animals and human beings. Developing micronutrientenriched agricultural crops (biofortification), agronomically and/or genetically, is considered the most cost-effective and sustainable approach to alleviate malnutrition and related health problems (Peleg et al, 2008; Bouis and Saltzman, 2017). Inherently low in micronutrients and show a narrow genetic variation for micronutrients to be exploited in breeding programs (Velu et al, 2017). One effective strategy to improve the amount of mineral elements in wheat grains is to exploit the “left behind” genetic variation in wild relatives for grain micronutrients (Peleg et al, 2008, 2009)
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