Abstract
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been used widely to analyze the genetic control of complex traits in crops. In the present study, seven related phenotypic traits were analyzed in combination to study their association with 41,101 SNPs in 201 maize inbred lines that had been evaluated in seven environments (year/location combinations) under water-stressed (WS) or well-watered (WW) regimes. By comparing the association signals with a fixed P value, GWAS showed that the number of association signals identified varied among traits and in different environments. Data that were missing under the severe water stress treatment had a great impact on the results of this GWAS. A total of 206 significant SNPs were associated with 115 candidate genes for drought tolerance and related traits including final grain yield, total number of ears per plot, kernel number per row, plant height, anthesis-silking interval, days to anthesis (DtA), and days to silking (DtS). Among these, four genes were associated with at least two different related traits, and six genes associated with traits were detected in at least two environments under water stress. Nine candidate QTL identified by GWAS were also discovered, three of which co-located to a consensus QTL region meta-analyzed by linkage mapping for drought tolerance. Some regulatory genes related to abiotic stress responses might also make a strong contribution to drought tolerance. The comprehensive information presented here regarding consensus QTL combined with candidate genes derived from GWAS provides an important reference tool for improving maize drought tolerance.
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This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31271735), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2011AA100501), and the National Plan for Science & Technology Support (2014BAD01B09).
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Nan Wang and Zhen-ping Wang have contributed equally to this research.
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Wang, N., Wang, Zp., Liang, Xl. et al. Identification of loci contributing to maize drought tolerance in a genome-wide association study. Euphytica 210, 165–179 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-016-1688-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-016-1688-0