Frontiers Science Center for Molecular Design Breeding (MOE), Key Laboratory of Crop Heterosis and Utilization, Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
Frontiers Science Center for Molecular Design Breeding (MOE), Key Laboratory of Crop Heterosis and Utilization, Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China; Institute of Crop Germplasm Resource, Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Urumqi, China.
Plant Sci. 2023 Jun;331:111676. doi: 10.1016/j.plantsci.2023.111676. Epub 2023 Mar 17.
Heat stress is a limiting factor in wheat production along with global warming. Development of heat-tolerant wheat varieties and generation of suitable pre-breeding materials are the major goals in current wheat breeding programs. Our understanding on the genetic basis of thermotolerance remains sparse. In this study, we genotyped a collection of 211 core spring wheat accessions and conducted field trials to evaluate the grain-related traits under heat stress and non-stress conditions in two different locations for three consecutive years. Based on SNP datasets and grain-related traits, we performed genome-wide association study (GWAS) to detect stable loci related to thermotolerance. Thirty-three quantitative trait loci (QTL) were identified, nine of them are the same loci as previous studies, and 24 are potentially novel loci. Functional candidate genes at these QTL are predicted and proved to be relevant to heat stress and grain-related traits such as TaELF3-A1 (1A) for earliness per se (Eps), TaHSFA1-B1 (5B) influencing heat tolerance and TaVIN2-A1 (6A) for grain size. Functional markers of TaELF3-A1 were detected and converted to KASP markers, with their function and genetic diversity being analyzed in the natural populations. In addition, our results unveiled favor alleles controlling agronomic traits and/or heat stress tolerance. In summary, we provide insights into heritable correlation between yield and heat stress tolerance, which will accelerate the development of new cultivars with high and stable yield of wheat in the future.
热应激是与全球变暖一起限制小麦生产的因素。培育耐热小麦品种和生成合适的预繁殖材料是当前小麦育种计划的主要目标。我们对耐热遗传基础的理解仍然很缺乏。在这项研究中，我们对 211 份核心春小麦材料进行了基因型分析，并在两个不同地点连续三年进行了田间试验，以评估热应激和非应激条件下的粒相关性状。基于 SNP 数据集和粒相关性状，我们进行了全基因组关联研究（GWAS），以检测与耐热性相关的稳定位点。鉴定出 33 个数量性状位点（QTL），其中 9 个与先前的研究相同，24 个是潜在的新位点。这些 QTL 上的功能候选基因被预测并证明与耐热性和粒相关性状有关，例如 TaELF3-A1（1A）对自身早熟性（Eps），TaHSFA1-B1（5B）影响耐热性和 TaVIN2-A1（6A）对粒大小。检测到 TaELF3-A1 的功能标记，并将其转化为 KASP 标记，分析了它们在自然群体中的功能和遗传多样性。此外，我们的结果揭示了控制农艺性状和/或耐热性的有利等位基因。总之，我们提供了对产量和耐热性之间可遗传相关性的深入了解，这将加速未来具有高且稳定产量的小麦新品种的开发。
