Two studies illustrate that with the appropriate resources and scale of study, most of the heritability of complex traits in maize is not missing, but can be located within the genome. Given that maize is one of the world's most important crop plants, this has implications for feeding a growing population with minimum carbon footprint as well as for understanding the genetics of complex traits in a range of species.
References
Tian, F. et al. Nat. Genet. 43, 159–162 (2011).
Kump, K.L. et al. Nat. Genet. 43, 163–168 (2011).
McMullen, M.D. et al. 325, 737–740 (2009).
Gore, M.A. et al. Science 326, 1115–1117 (2009).
Valdar, W. et al. Nat. Genet. 38, 879–887 (2006).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Haley, C. A cornucopia of maize genes. Nat Genet 43, 87–88 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0211-87
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0211-87
- Springer Nature America, Inc.
This article is cited by
-
Integrated genomics-based mapping reveals the genetics underlying maize flavonoid biosynthesis
BMC Plant Biology (2017)
-
Genome-wide association studies of drought-related metabolic changes in maize using an enlarged SNP panel
Theoretical and Applied Genetics (2016)