Genome-Wide Association Study of Partial Resistance to in Wild Soybeans from Heilongjiang Province, China.

Phytophthora root rot (PRR) is a destructive disease of soybeans ( (L.) Merr) caused by (). The most effective way to prevent the disease is growing resistant or tolerant varieties. Partial resistance provides a more durable resistance against the pathogen compared to complete resistance. Wild soybean ( Sieb. & Zucc.) seems to be an extraordinarily important gene pool for soybean improvement due to its high level of genetic variation. In this study, 242 wild soybean germplasms originating from different regions of Heilongjiang province were used to identify resistance genes to race 1 using a genome-wide association study (GWAS). A total of nine significant SNPs were detected, repeatedly associated with resistance and located on chromosomes 1, 10, 12, 15, 17, 19 and 20. Among them, seven favorable allelic variations associated with resistance were evaluated by a t-test. Eight candidate genes were predicted to explore the mechanistic hypotheses of partial resistance, including , which encodes an LRR receptor-like serine/threonine protein kinase protein, , which encodes a receptor-like cytosolic serine/threonine protein kinase protein. These findings will provide additional insights into the genetic architecture of resistance in a large sample of wild soybeans and -resistant breeding through marker-assisted selection.