Genome-wide association study (GWAS) reveals the genetic architecture of four husk traits in maize

Maize (Zea mays) husk referring to the leafy outer enclosing the ear, plays an important role in grain production by directly contributing photosynthate and protecting ear from pathogen infection. Although the physiological functions related to husk have been extensively studied, little is known abo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC genomics 2016-11, Vol.17 (1), p.946-946, Article 946
Main Authors: Cui, Zhenhai, Luo, Jinhong, Qi, Chuangye, Ruan, Yanye, Li, Jing, Zhang, Ao, Yang, Xiaohong, He, Yan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis of Variance
Cluster Analysis
Computational Biology - methods
Corn
Gene Expression Profiling
Genes, Plant
Genetic aspects
Genome, Plant
Genome-wide association studies
Genome-Wide Association Study
Genomics
Genotype
Identification and classification
Methods
Phenotype
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
Quantitative Trait Loci
Quantitative Trait, Heritable
Zea mays - genetics
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Maize (Zea mays) husk referring to the leafy outer enclosing the ear, plays an important role in grain production by directly contributing photosynthate and protecting ear from pathogen infection. Although the physiological functions related to husk have been extensively studied, little is known about its morphological variation and genetic basis in natural population. Here we utilized a maize association panel including 508 inbred lines with tropical, subtropical and temperate backgrounds to decipher the genetic architecture attributed to four husk traits, i.e. number of layers, length, width and thickness. Evaluating the phenotypic diversity at two different environments showed that four traits exhibit broadly natural variations and moderate levels of heritability with 0.64, 0.74, 0.49 and 0.75 for number, length, width and thickness, respectively. Diversity analysis indicated that different traits have dissimilar responses to subpopulation effects. A series of significantly positive or negative correlations between husk phenotypes and other agronomic traits were identified, indicating that husk growth is coordinated with other developmental processes. Combining husk traits with about half of a million of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) via genome-wide association study revealed a total of 9 variants significantly associated with traits at P 
ISSN:1471-2164
1471-2164
DOI:10.1186/s12864-016-3229-6