Journal Article

Candidate genes and genome-wide association study of grain protein content and protein deviation in durum wheat

Gadaleta, A., Simeone, R., Nigro, D., Giove, S. L., Blanco, A., Colasuonno, P., Giancaspro, A., Marcotuli, I., Mangini, G.

2019

Overview

Grain protein content (GPC) is one of the most important quality traits in wheat, defining the nutritional and end-use properties and rheological characteristics. Over the years, a number of breeding programs have been developed aimed to improving GPC, most of them having been prevented by the negative correlation with grain yield. To overcome this issue, a collection of durum wheat germplasm was evaluated for both GPC and grain protein deviation (GPD) in seven field trials. Fourteen candidate genes involved in several processes related to nitrogen metabolism were precisely located on two high-density consensus maps of common and durum wheat, and six of them were found to be highly associated with both traits. The wheat collection was genotyped using the 90 K iSelect array, and 11 stable quantitative trait loci (QTL) for GPC were detected in at least three environments and the mean across environments by the genome-wide association mapping. Interestingly, seven QTL were co-migrating with N-related candidate genes. Four QTL were found to be significantly associated to increases of GPD, indicating that selecting for GPC could not affect final grain yield per spike. The combined approaches of candidate genes and genome-wide association mapping led to a better understanding of the genetic relationships between grain storage proteins and grain yield per spike, and provided useful information for marker-assisted selection programs.

• Publisher: Springer Science + Business Media,Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Agriculture / Biomedical and Life Sciences / breeding programs / chromosome mapping / Collection / Crop yield / Deviation / DNA, Plant - genetics / DNA, Plant - isolation & purification / durum wheat / Ecology / Edible Grain - chemistry / field experimentation / Forestry / Gene mapping / Genes / Genes, Plant - genetics / Genes, Plant - physiology / genetic relationships / Genome-wide association studies / Genome-Wide Association Study / Genomes / genotyping / Genotyping Techniques / Germplasm / Grain / grain protein / grain yield / Life Sciences / Marker-assisted selection / Metabolism / Nitrogen / Nitrogen metabolism / Nutrient content / ORIGINAL ARTICLE / Peptide mapping / Plant Proteins - analysis / Plant Sciences / Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide - genetics / protein content / Proteins / Quantitative trait loci / Quantitative Trait Loci - genetics / Rheological properties / Storage proteins / Triticum - chemistry / Triticum - genetics / Triticum - metabolism / Triticum durum / Wheat