Mapping of QTLs associated with important agronomic traits using three populations derived from a super hybrid rice Xieyou9308

Abstract

Xieyou9308 is the first commercial super hybrid rice released in 1996 in China. To clarify its genetic mechanism underlying high yield potential, a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from the cross between the maintainer line XieqingzaoB (XQZB) and the restorer line Zhonghui9308 (ZH9308) and two derived backcross F1 (BCF1) populations were developed for the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) related to ten important agronomic traits (tiller number (TN), heading date (HD), and grain yield per plant (GYPP), etc.). The BCF1 performance was closely correlated with the performance of their parental RILs according to both the analysis of broad-sense heritability (h B 2 ) and phenotypic correlation coefficient (PCC) in the two BCF1 populations, but not proved by QTL analysis. A total of 21 additive-effect main QTLs (M-QTLs), 22 dominant-effect M-QTLs, and 19 dominant-effect M-QTLs were detected with the WinQTLCart 2.50 software for the ten traits in the RIL and two BCF1 populations, respectively. Of theses, three QTLs (qHD7a, qPPP3a, and qPL10) of 21 were detected repeatedly in the RIL and one BCF1 populations, ten QTLs underlying four traits were only detected repeatedly in two BCF1 populations, and nine QTLs controlling more than two traits were detected repeatedly, the additive-effect QTLs and dominant-effect QTLs play an important role in the performance of agronomic traits and no epistatic QTL of additive by additive effect and dominant by dominant-effect was detected for all traits in three populations. This research is valuable for M-QTL related to important agronomic trait in future fine mapping and positional cloning.