title: Genetic Determinants of the Network of Primary Metabolism and Their Relationships to Plant Performance in a Maize Recombinant Inbred Line Population.
abstract: Deciphering the influence of genetics on primary metabolism in plants will provide insights useful for genetic improvement and enhance our fundamental understanding of plant growth and development. Although maize (Zea mays) is a major crop for food and feed worldwide, the genetic architecture of its primary metabolism is largely unknown. Here, we use high-density linkage mapping to dissect large-scale metabolic traits measured in three different tissues (leaf at seedling stage, leaf at reproductive stage, and kernel at 15 d after pollination [DAP]) of a maize recombinant inbred line population. We identify 297 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) with moderate (86.2% of the mapped QTL, R(2) = 2.4 to 15%) to major effects (13.8% of the mapped QTL, R(2) >15%) for 79 primary metabolites across three tissues. Pairwise epistatic interactions between these identified loci are detected for more than 25.9% metabolites explaining 6.6% of the phenotypic variance on average (ranging between 1.7 and 16.6%), which implies that epistasis may play an important role for some metabolites. Key candidate genes are highlighted and mapped to carbohydrate metabolism, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, and several important amino acid biosynthetic and catabolic pathways, with two of them being further validated using candidate gene association and expression profiling analysis. Our results reveal a metabolite-metabolite-agronomic trait network that, together with the genetic determinants of maize primary metabolism identified herein, promotes efficient utilization of metabolites in maize improvement.
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany.
authors.forename: Weiwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany.
authors.forename: Saleh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alseekh
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany.
authors.forename: Nooshin
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5548-4338
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Omranian
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Lijun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8630-3464
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Yingjie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Haijun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Florian
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Wenqiang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Qingchun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany.
authors.forename: Zoran
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2671-6763
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Nikoloski
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China yjianbing@mail.hzau.edu.cn fernie@mpimp-golm.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Jianbing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany yjianbing@mail.hzau.edu.cn fernie@mpimp-golm.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Alisdair R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Fernie
mesh_terms: D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D032461:Chromosomes, Plant / Q000235:genetics; D004843:Epistasis, Genetic; D017343:Genes, Plant; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D014644:Genetic Variation; D007178:Inbreeding; D053858:Metabolic Networks and Pathways / Q000235:genetics*; D055442:Metabolome / Q000235:genetics; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000235:genetics; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci / Q000235:genetics; D011995:Recombination, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D003313:Zea mays / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*