The Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 7610001, Rehovot, Israel.
Department of Animal and Poultry Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, 24061, USA.
BMC Plant Biol. 2021 Nov 22;21(1):549. doi: 10.1186/s12870-021-03328-4.
Unrevealing the genetic makeup of crop morpho-agronomic traits is essential for improving yield quality and sustainability. Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) is one of the oldest oil-crops in the world. Despite its economic and agricultural importance, it is an 'orphan crop-plant' that has undergone limited modern selection, and, as a consequence preserved wide genetic diversity. Here we established a new sesame panel (SCHUJI) that contains 184 genotypes representing wide phenotypic variation and is geographically distributed. We harnessed the natural variation of this panel to perform genome-wide association studies for morpho-agronomic traits under the Mediterranean climate conditions.
Field-based phenotyping of the SCHUJI panel across two seasons exposed wide phenotypic variation for all traits. Using 20,294 single-nucleotide polymorphism markers, we detected 50 genomic signals associated with these traits. Major genomic region on LG2 was associated with flowering date and yield-related traits, exemplified the key role of the flowering date on productivity.
Our results shed light on the genetic architecture of flowering date and its interaction with yield components in sesame and may serve as a basis for future sesame breeding programs in the Mediterranean basin.
揭示作物形态农艺性状的遗传构成对于提高产量质量和可持续性至关重要。芝麻（Sesamum indicum L.）是世界上最古老的油料作物之一。尽管它具有经济和农业重要性，但它是一种“孤儿作物植物”，经历了有限的现代选择，因此保留了广泛的遗传多样性。在这里，我们建立了一个新的芝麻面板（SCHUJI），其中包含 184 个基因型，代表广泛的表型变异和地理分布。我们利用这个面板的自然变异，在地中海气候条件下对形态农艺性状进行全基因组关联研究。
SCHUJI 面板在两个季节的田间表型分析揭示了所有性状的广泛表型变异。使用 20,294 个单核苷酸多态性标记，我们检测到与这些性状相关的 50 个基因组信号。LG2 上的主要基因组区域与开花日期和产量相关性状相关，这说明了开花日期对生产力的关键作用。
我们的研究结果揭示了芝麻开花日期及其与地中海盆地产量构成要素相互作用的遗传结构，并可能为未来的芝麻育种计划提供基础。
