Abstract
Uncovering the genetic architecture for grain yield (GY)–related traits is important for wheat breeding. To detect stable loci for GY-related traits, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted in a diverse panel, which included 251 elite spring wheat accessions mainly from the Northeast of China. In total, 52,503 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the wheat 55 K SNP arrays were used. Thirty-eight loci for GY-related traits were detected and each explained 6.5–16.7% of the phenotypic variations among which 12 are at similar locations with the known genes or quantitative trait loci and 26 are likely to be new. Furthermore, six genes possibly involved in cell division, signal transduction, and plant development are candidate genes for GY-related traits. This study provides new insights into the genetic architecture of GY and the significantly associated SNPs and accessions with a larger number of favorable alleles could be used to further enhance GY in breeding.
Highlights
Common wheat is the most important food crop worldwide and provides nearly 20% of the total caloric input to the global population
Significant and continuous variations of grain yield (GY) and related traits were observed in the diverse panel (Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Figure 1)
A significant population structure existed in the diverse panel, and previous studies indicate that the lack of appropriate correction for population structure can lead to spurious marker-trait associations (MTAs)
Summary
Common wheat is the most important food crop worldwide and provides nearly 20% of the total caloric input to the global population. Grain yield (GY) improvement is one of the challenging goals in wheat breeding due to the complex genetic architecture and low heritability (He et al, 2010; Tester and Langridge, 2010; Gao et al, 2017; Wang et al, 2019). The wheat production in this region is facing various threats, such as decreased groundwater, resulting in declining growing area, the irrigation frequency of wheat, and the bottleneck for yield potential of new cultivars through conventional breeding (He et al, 2010; Tester and Langridge, 2010). Grain yield is a complex trait and influenced by many factors, the genetic factors. Marker-assisted selection (MAS) is an effective tool for the further
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