Abstract
Leaf size and shape play important roles in agronomic traits, such as yield, quality and stress responses. Wide variations in leaf morphological traits exist in cultivated varieties of many plant species. By now, the genetics of leaf shape and size have not been characterized in Brassica napus. In this study, a population of 172 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) was used for quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis of leaf morphology traits. Furthermore, fresh young leaves of extreme lines with more leaf lobes (referred to as ‘A’) and extreme lines with fewer lobes (referred to as ‘B’) selected from the RIL population and leaves of dissected lines (referred to as ‘P’) were used for transcriptional analysis. A total of 31 QTLs for the leaf morphological traits tested in this study were identified on 12 chromosomes, explaining 5.32–39.34% of the phenotypic variation. There were 8, 6, 2, 5, 8, and 2 QTLs for PL (petiole length), PN (lobe number), LW (lamina width), LL (Lamina length), LL/LTL (the lamina size ratio) and LTL (leaf total length), respectively. In addition, 74, 1,166 and 1,272 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in ‘A vs B’, ‘A vs P’ and ‘B vs P’ comparisons, respectively. The Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases were used to predict the functions of these DEGs. Gene regulators of leaf shape and size, such as ASYMMETRIC LEAVES 2, gibberellin 20-oxidase 3, genes encoding gibberellin-regulated family protein, genes encoding growth-regulating factor and KNOTTED1-like homeobox were also detected in DEGs. After integrating the QTL mapping and RNA sequencing data, 33 genes, including a gene encoding auxin-responsive GH3 family protein and a gene encoding sphere organelles protein-related gene, were selected as candidates that may control leaf shape. Our findings should be valuable for studies of the genetic control of leaf morphological trait regulation in B. napus.
Highlights
Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) is an important oil crop worldwide that provides both edible oil and industrial materials
Our findings should be valuable for studies of the genetic control of leaf morphological trait regulation in B. napus
We examined a wide range of leaf morphological traits in this study, which showed the transgressive and continuous distributions expected for characters displaying h2 is heritability; h2 = (MSv-MSe)/(MSv+(r-1)*MSe)*100%, where MSv is the mean square variation, MSe is the mean square error, and r is the number of replicates. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0169641.t001
Summary
Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) is an important oil crop worldwide that provides both edible oil and industrial materials. Leaf morphology, which has a significant impact on yield, is an important agronomic trait, but information on gene levels in oilseed rape is lacking. As lateral organs and determinants of growth, develop from flanking regions of the shoot apical meristem (SAM) [6]. Their morphology involves a balance between cell proliferation and polar cell division and expansion along the proximal–distal, medial–lateral and adaxial–abaxial axes [7,8,9,10]. Plant hormones, such as strigolactone, auxin, cytokinin, and gibberellin (GA), influence leaf development and morphogenesis [11,12,13]
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