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A candidate gene for lignin composition in Eucalyptus: cinnamoyl-CoA reductase (CCR)

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Abstract

Lignin content and composition are considered as mandatory traits of eucalyptus breeding programs, especially for pulp, paper, and bioenergy production. In this article, we used 33 Eucalyptus urophylla full-sib families of an 8 × 8 factorial design to provide estimates of genetic parameters for lignin- and growth-related traits. Secondly, from the sequencing of the 16 unrelated founders, we described the nucleotide and haplotype variability of cinnamoyl-CoA reductase (CCR), a candidate gene for lignin-related traits encoding the cinnamoyl-CoA reductase. Finally, we tested the association between CCR polymorphisms and trait variation using a mixed linear model. A high value of narrow sense heritability was obtained for lignin content (h² = 0.85) and S/G ratio (h² = 0.62) indicating that these traits are under strong genetic control. High levels of nucleotide (θπ = 0.0131) and haplotype (Hd = 0.958) diversity were detected for CCR. From an initial set of 152 biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), a subset of 65 nonredundant loci was selected. Three intronic SNPs were found to be associated to the variation of S/G ratio after multiple testing correction. In the line of what has been obtained in forest trees, these SNPs explained between 2.45% and 2.87% of the genetic variance of the trait. This study demonstrates the interest of the candidate gene approach for quantitative trait nucleotide detection in Eucalyptus and paves the way to gene assisted selection of lignin composition in E. urophylla.

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Acknowledgments

This article is a part of Eric Mandrou’s PhD thesis supervised by Jean-Marc Gion and Christophe Plomion. EM was supported by a CIFRE contract between Vallourec CEV and CIRAD. This research was also supported by grants from Vallourec (Services agreement 2006 between CIRAD and VMB), from Bureau des Ressources Génétiques (2005_2006 N°25), from Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Plateformes Technologiques du Vivant (BOOST-SNP project, 07PFTV002), Aquitaine Région with FEDER ABIOGEN project (N° Presage 32973) and CIRAD. The field experiments were carried out at the CRDPI station (Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo). The founders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Recherche Vallourec, CEV, Route de Leval BP 17, Aulnoye Aymeries, France

    Eric Mandrou

  2. CIRAD, UMR AGAP, Equipe Génétique et Amélioration des Espèces Pérennes: Modèles Forêt & Palmier, Campus International de Baillarguet TA A-39/C, Montpellier cedex 5, France

    Eric Mandrou, Emilie Villar & Jean-Marc Gion

  3. INRA, UMR 1202 BIOGECO, 69 Route d’Arcachon, 33612, Cestas Pierroton, France

    Eric Mandrou, Emilie Villar, Christophe Plomion & Jean-Marc Gion

  4. CIRAD, UPR40 Production and Processing of Tropical Woods, 73 rue J-F Breton TA B­40/16, Montpellier, France

    Paulo Ricardo Gherardi Hein

  5. CRDPI, BP 1291, Pointe-Noire, République du Congo

    Emilie Villar & Philippe Vigneron

  6. Université Bordeaux 1, 69 Route d’Arcachon, Cestas Pierroton, France

    Christophe Plomion

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  1. Eric Mandrou
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Correspondence to Jean-Marc Gion.

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Communicated by W. Boerjan

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Mandrou, E., Hein, P.R.G., Villar, E. et al. A candidate gene for lignin composition in Eucalyptus: cinnamoyl-CoA reductase (CCR). Tree Genetics & Genomes 8, 353–364 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-011-0446-7

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