title: Association mapping of dynamic developmental plant height in common wheat.
abstract: Drought as a major abiotic stress often occurs from stem elongation to the grain filling stage of wheat in northern China. Plant height (PH) is a suitable trait to model the dissection of drought tolerance. The purposes of the present study were to validate molecular markers for PH developmental behavior and identify elite alleles of molecular markers. After the phenotyping of 154 accessions for PH dynamic development under well-watered (WW) and drought stressed (DS) conditions, and the genotyping of 60 SSR markers from six candidate chromosome regions related to PH found in our previous linkage mapping studies, both parameters PH and drought tolerance coefficient (DTC) calculated by the conditional analysis were used for association mapping. A total of 46 significant association signals (P < 0.01) were identified in 23 markers, and phenotypic variation ranged from 7 to 50%. Among them, four markers Xgwm261-2D, Xgwm495-4B, Xbarc109-4B and Xcfd23-4D were detected under both water regimes. Furthermore, 10 markers were associated with DTC, and four with both parameters PH and DTC at the same plant development stage. The results revealed different allelic effects of associated markers; for example, the 155 bp Xgwm495-4B allele was associated with a reduced height of -11.2 cm under DS and -15.3 cm under WW, whereas the 167 bp allele exhibited increased height effects of 3.9 and 8.1 cm, respectively. This study demonstrates a strong power of joint association analysis and linkage mapping for the identification of important genes in wheat.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Crop Germplasm Resources and Utilization, Ministry of Agriculture / The National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement / Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China.
authors.forename: Jianan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Chenyang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Xiaoping
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Guiru
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Ruilian
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jing
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000483:Alleles; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D032461:Chromosomes, Plant / Q000235:genetics; D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D055864:Droughts; D005787:Gene Frequency; D008040:Genetic Linkage; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D010641:Phenotype; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D014908:Triticum / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D018744:DNA, Plant