Abstract
Drought stress is one of the most environmental abiotic stresses affecting seed germination and crop growth. In the present study, the genetic characteristics of seed germination under drought stress in a Brassica napus double haploid population were analyzed. Five germination-related indexes, including germination percentage (GP), root length (RL), shoot length (SL), fresh weight (FW), and root-to-shoot length ratio (R/S) under control and drought stress, were calculated, and the drought stress index (DSI), including DSI-GP, DSI-RL, DSI-SL, DSI-FW, and DSI-R/S, was determined using the quantitative trait loci (QTLs) analysis based on high-density genetic linkage map. The phenotypic analysis indicated that the R/S is an effective morphological trait in the determination of drought tolerance in the seedling stage. Thirty-nine identified QTLs were observed for these traits and then integrated into 36 consensus QTLs, in which 18 QTLs were found to affect the DSI of four traits (GP, RL, SL, and R/S). Based on the co-linearity between genetic and physical maps of B. napus, 256 candidate genes were detected, and 128 genes have single-nucleotidepolymorphisms/insertion–deletion (SNP/InDel) variations between two parents, some of which were associated with the drought stress tolerance (for example, BnaC03g32780D, BnaC03g37030D, and BnaC09g27300D). The present results laid insights into drought tolerance and its genetic bases in B. napus.
Highlights
Worldwide, plants live in permanently changing environments that are often undesirable or stressful for growth and development
It was revealed that the root-to-shoot length ratio (R/S) was sensitive to drought stress, and it was consistent with the results of Dhanda et al (2004) in wheat
R/S was positively correlated with germination percentage (GP), root length (RL), and drought stress index (DSI)-shoot length (SL) under drought stress, while in the case of control, it showed a negative correlation with GP and SL; the results suggested that B. napus is likely to resist the effect of drought through increasing water uptake and reducing its loss
Summary
Plants live in permanently changing environments that are often undesirable or stressful for growth and development. These unfavorable conditions include abiotic stresses, such as drought, heat, nutrient deficiency, cold, and salinity, and biotic stresses, such as herbivore attack and pathogen infections. There is an urgent need to produce crop varieties capable of adapting to such conditions and maintaining high levels of productivity. These challenges have prompted scientists to do more to improve the ability of crops to resist such harsh conditions (Zhang et al, 2014)
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