National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, Wuhan, China.
Genome Biol. 2023 Jun 19;24(1):141. doi: 10.1186/s13059-023-02984-z.
Seed oil content is an important agronomic trait of Brassica napus (B. napus), and metabolites are considered as the bridge between genotype and phenotype for physical traits.
Using a widely targeted metabolomics analysis in a natural population of 388 B. napus inbred lines, we quantify 2172 metabolites in mature seeds by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, in which 131 marker metabolites are identified to be correlated with seed oil content. These metabolites are then selected for further metabolite genome-wide association study and metabolite transcriptome-wide association study. Combined with weighted correlation network analysis, we construct a triple relationship network, which includes 21,000 edges and 4384 nodes among metabolites, metabolite quantitative trait loci, genes, and co-expression modules. We validate the function of BnaA03.TT4, BnaC02.TT4, and BnaC05.UK, three candidate genes predicted by multi-omics analysis, which show significant impacts on seed oil content through regulating flavonoid metabolism in B. napus.
This study demonstrates the advantage of utilizing marker metabolites integrated with multi-omics analysis to dissect the genetic basis of agronomic traits in crops.
油菜籽的含油量是油菜（B. napus）的一个重要农艺性状，代谢物被认为是基因型和表型之间物理性状的桥梁。
通过对 388 个油菜自交系自然群体进行广泛靶向代谢组学分析，我们利用液相色谱-质谱法定量分析成熟种子中的 2172 种代谢物，其中鉴定出 131 种标记代谢物与种子含油量相关。然后，这些代谢物被选择用于进一步的代谢物全基因组关联研究和代谢物全转录组关联研究。结合加权相关网络分析，我们构建了一个三重关系网络，其中包括代谢物、代谢物数量性状基因座、基因和共表达模块之间的 21000 个边缘和 4384 个节点。通过调控油菜中的类黄酮代谢，我们验证了通过多组学分析预测的三个候选基因 BnaA03.TT4、BnaC02.TT4 和 BnaC05.UK 对种子含油量的显著影响。
本研究利用标记代谢物与多组学分析相结合，展示了剖析作物农艺性状遗传基础的优势。
