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Identification of QTLs associated with male strobilus abundance in Cryptomeria japonica

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Abstract

It has become increasingly important to understand the factors controlling the abundance of male strobili in Cryptomeria japonica since allergic reactions to the species’ pollen have become prevalent in Japan. There is considerable inter-annual variation in the abundance of male strobili, so it is important to investigate and validate quantitative trait loci (QTL) for strobili abundance across different years. Data on third generation families derived from an individual that produces abundant male strobili were studied using Kruskal–Wallis tests and Bayesian regression analysis, resulting in the detection of a single major QTL that was observed over multiple years. This QTL explained between 10.4 and 26.5 % of the phenotypic variation in male strobilus abundance. The consistency and significance of this QTL’s effects suggest that it has a major role in male strobilus production in C. japonica, although we also detected other QTLs, indicating that strobilus production is subject to complex and multifactorial regulation. These QTL may also affect precocity because we were unable to separate their effects from the genetic variability in male strobilus production. The major QTL that we detected occurs in a region homologous to a QTL detected in a previous study examining trees with a different genetic heritage following artificial induction of male strobilus production. This result further supports the importance of the QTL detected in the present study. Identifying the important genes in this QTL will therefore significantly increase our understanding of the genetic mechanisms of pollen production in C. japonica.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (grant no. 15780118) and by the Program for Supporting Activities for Female Researchers funded by the Special Coordination Fund for Promoting Science and Technology of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, and the Program for the Promotion of Basic and Applied Research for Innovations in Bio-oriented Industry. The authors would like to thank Dr. H. Fukuoka for providing the protocol for the HRM analysis. The authors are also grateful to Ms. M. Koshiba for technical assistance and Messrs. M. Okamoto, K. Arai, I. Karube, H. Kimura, T. Suzuki, T. Yoshitake, and all members of the Tree Genetics laboratory at FFPRI for helping with field experiments and progeny maintenance. We also acknowledge Mr. M. Murai for supplying the pedigree of CR46.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tree Genetics Laboratory, Department of Forest Genetics, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8687, Japan

    Tokuko Ujino-Ihara, Yuriko Taguchi & Yoshihiko Tsumura

  2. Laboratory of Biometry and Bioinformatics, Department of Agricultural and Environmental Biology, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    Hiroyoshi Iwata

Authors
  1. Tokuko Ujino-Ihara
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  2. Hiroyoshi Iwata
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  3. Yuriko Taguchi
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  4. Yoshihiko Tsumura
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tokuko Ujino-Ihara.

Additional information

Communicated by D. Grattapaglia

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ESM 1

(PPTX 1101 kb)

ESM 2

Linkage maps for C. japonica. The linkage groups on the left are based on the consensus map from Tani et al. (2003) and the other linkage groups were constructed based on the segregation data of three third generation progenies derived from CR46. The prefixes A, B, and C were given before the number of each of the linkage groups for families A, B and C, respectively. In the consensus map, markers that are orthologous to those used in this study are indicated in bold and part of them are also indicated by allelic bridges. Markers that could not be positioned in the linkage groups constructed in this study are shown in italics. For HRM markers, corresponding cDNA clone names (or the name of corresponding markers on the consensus map) are shown after the HRM marker name (PPTX 1.07 MB)

ESM 3

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Ujino-Ihara, T., Iwata, H., Taguchi, Y. et al. Identification of QTLs associated with male strobilus abundance in Cryptomeria japonica . Tree Genetics & Genomes 8, 1319–1329 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-012-0518-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-012-0518-3

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