Abstract
Dormancy and reducing sugar content in tubers are important traits of potato and are typical quantitative traits. Deciphering the genetic basis of potato tuber dormancy and reducing sugar content is a prerequisite for improving the two traits. DorB5.3, a stable major dormancy QTL (quantitative trait locus) previously mapped across seven environments, has been found to co-localize with REC_B_05-1, a QTL controlling reducing sugar content in potato tubers. In order to determine whether DorB5.3 was a pleiotropic QTL or not, a conditional QTL mapping was carried out, and the results suggested that DorB5.3 and REC_B_05-1 were the same QTL, controlling the dormancy and reducing sugar content in potato tubers simultaneously. Conditional QTL mapping also uncovered three pairs of epistatic QTLs which were independent of the reducing sugar content and were significant for deciphering the genetic basis of dormancy. Five genes were picked out as putative causal genes controlling DorB5.3, according to the genome annotation and transcriptomic data. The pleiotropic DorB5.3 along with the negative correlation between the causal and resultant traits provided a possibility that potato breeders could prolong the dormancy period and scale back the reducing sugar content of potato tubers in one breeding program. The results of this study could pave a way for understanding the genetic basis of both dormancy and reducing sugar content in potato breeding programs.
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Data Availability
The data supporting the findings of this study are available within its supplementary TableS1-2 or available from the corresponding author, BN, upon reasonable request.
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Funding
This work was supported by Hubei Key Laboratory of Economic Forest Germplasm Improvement and Resources Comprehensive Utilization (No. 201931603), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32060504), the High-level Nurturing Project of Huanggang Normal University (No. 04201711403), the Innovative Training Program for College Students of Hubei Province (202110514024), and the China Agriculture Research System of MOF and MARA (CARS-09-P07).
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All the authors contributed to the study conception and design. The conditional QTL mapping was conducted by Jingcai Li. The reducing sugar contents were measured by Guilin Xiao and Wei Tu. The cluster heatmap analysis was conducted by Tengfei Liu. Identification of the putative causal genes and reverse e-PCR analysis were conducted by Huoyun Chen and Wentao Tao. Bihua Nie and Botao Song conceived and planned the study. Jingcai Li and Botao Song edited and finalized the manuscript. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jingcai Li and Wei Tu, and all the authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Li, J., Tu, W., Xiao, G. et al. Pleiotropic QTL Underlying the Dormancy and Reducing Sugar Content in Potato Tubers Uncovered by Conditional QTL Analysis. Potato Res. 66, 965–979 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11540-022-09606-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11540-022-09606-4