Genome-Wide Association Analysis of Yield Traits in Xinjiang Winter Wheat Germplasm

To discover new high yield genes in wheat by association analysis, which can provide technical supports for the innovation and genetic improvement of high yield germplasm resources in wheat.

Totally 188 bread wheat cultivars in Xinjiang were genotyped using the wheat 55K genotyping assay. GWAS was carried out to identify the signifcant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) which were associated with 9 wheat yield traits in 6 environments. The MLM algorithm in TASSEL5.0 was used to analyze the nine traits related to wheat yield traits.

Totally 1309 SNPs explained 7.259%-70.792% of the phenotypic variation. 38 SNP loci were identifed, which were significantly correlated with 5 plant height weight SNP loci, 10 spike length weight SNP loci, 10 spikelet number SNP loci, 6 fertile spikelet number SNP loci, 6 spike grain number SNP loci, and 1 thousand grain weight SNP loci. These loci can explain 9.10%-23.81% of phenotypic variations. Comparing these 38 loci with the published wheat genome loci, only 3 functional genes were found, which annotated with gene function. There genes are: TraesCS2A01G448800 on chromosome 2A, which is close to the plant height associated site AX-108794050 and is related to the metabolic synthesis of transcription factor bHLH71; TraesCS2A01G448800, located on chromosome 1A at a distance similar to the spike length associated site AX-110689765, is related to protein coding; TraesCS4B01G031100, located on the 4B chromosome at a distance similar to the 1000 grain weight associated site AX-110399975, is associated with the encoding serine/threonine protein kinase SD1-8 and is involved in regulating cell proliferation and differentiation.

38 QTL loci associated with wheat yield traits were detected. After verification, it was found that the associated excellent alleles have the effect of reducing plant height, increasing spike length, spikelet number, fertile spikelet number, grain number per spike, and thousand grain weight.