Teshome A, Habte E, Cheema J, Mekasha A, Lire H, Muktar M S, Quiroz-Chavez J, Domoney C, Jones C S
Feed and Forage Development, International Livestock Research Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK.
BMC Genomics. 2024 Dec 24;25(1):1241. doi: 10.1186/s12864-024-11104-5.
Lablab is one of the conventionally grown multi-purpose crops that originated in Africa. It is an annual or short-lived perennial forage legume which has versatile uses (as a vegetable and dry seeds, as food or feed, or as green manure) but is yet to receive adequate research attention and hence remains underexploited. To develop new and highly productive lablab varieties, using genomics-assisted selection, the present study aimed to identify quantitative trait loci associated with agronomically important traits in lablab and to assess the stability of these traits across two different agro-ecologies in Ethiopia. Here, we resequenced one hundred and forty-two lablab accessions, utilised whole genome genotyping approaches, and conducted multi-locational phenotyping over two years.
The selected lablab accessions displayed significant agro-morphological variation in eight analysed traits, including plant height, total fresh weight, and total dry weight. Furthermore, the agronomic performance of the accessions was significantly different across locations and years, highlighting substantial genotype-by-environment interactions. The population genetic structure of the lablab accessions, based on ~ 500,000 informative single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), revealed an independent domestication pattern for two-seeded and four-seeded lablab accessions. Finally, based on multi-environmental trial data, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified useful SNPs and k-mers for key traits, such as plant height and total dry weight.
The publicly available genomic tools and field evaluation data from this study will offer a valuable resource for plant breeders and researchers to inform a new cycle of lablab breeding. With the aid of these tools, the breeding cycle will be significantly reduced and livestock farmers will have access to improved lablab varieties in a shorter time-frame.
豆薯是一种传统种植的多用途作物，原产于非洲。它是一种一年生或短期多年生饲用豆科植物，具有多种用途（作为蔬菜和干种子、作为食物或饲料，或作为绿肥），但尚未得到足够的研究关注，因此仍未得到充分利用。为了利用基因组辅助选择培育新的高产豆薯品种，本研究旨在鉴定与豆薯农艺重要性状相关的数量性状位点，并评估这些性状在埃塞俄比亚两种不同农业生态环境中的稳定性。在这里，我们对142份豆薯种质进行了重测序，采用全基因组基因分型方法，并在两年内进行了多点表型分析。
所选豆薯种质在包括株高、总鲜重和总干重在内的8个分析性状上表现出显著的农艺形态变异。此外，种质的农艺性能在不同地点和年份之间存在显著差异，突出了显著的基因型与环境互作。基于约50万个信息性单核苷酸多态性（SNP）的豆薯种质群体遗传结构揭示了两粒种子和四粒种子豆薯种质的独立驯化模式。最后，基于多环境试验数据，全基因组关联研究（GWAS）确定了与株高和总干重等关键性状相关的有用SNP和k-mer。
本研究公开的基因组工具和田间评估数据将为植物育种者和研究人员提供宝贵资源，为豆薯育种的新周期提供信息。借助这些工具，育种周期将显著缩短，畜牧农民将能够在更短的时间内获得改良的豆薯品种。
