title: Breeding for Bio-ethanol Production inLolium perenneL.: Association of Allelic Variation with High Water-Soluble Carbohydrate Content.
abstract: Increasing the extractable sugar yield from perennial crops is one strategy to generate renewable fuels such as bio-ethanol.Lolium perenneL. (perennial ryegrass) can contain significant (>30% dry matter) water-soluble sugars in the form of polymeric fructan which is readily extracted, broken down and fermented to bio-ethanol. A population ofL. perennegenerated from four parents which differed in water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) content was subjected to multiple rounds of selection and recombination on the basis of early spring WSC content to produce a high WSC, and a low WSC population. A control population was generated by selecting the same number of plants at random. The alleles present at six candidate gene loci were analysed before and after selection and correlated to WSC content. Significant differences in the allele frequency ofL. perenne soluble-acid invertase1:4were observed between the three populations with one haplotype significantly associated with the high WSC C2S+population (after three rounds of selection and two rounds of recombination). Moreover, WSC content was also associated with biomass accumulation. Thus, in addition to a 2.84-fold increase in WSC yield, the C2S+population also had 1.48-fold more biomass per plant, resulting in 3.9-fold higher WSC yield per plant than the control population.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB UK.
authors.forename: Kerrie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Farrar
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB UK.
authors.forename: David N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB UK.
authors.forename: Lesley
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB UK.
authors.forename: Joe A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Gallagher
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB UK.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB UK.
authors.forename: Markku
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Farrell
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB UK.
authors.forename: Mervyn O
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Humphreys
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB UK.
authors.forename: Iain S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Donnison
keywords: Invertase1:4 (LpsaINV1:4); Marker-assisted selection (MAS); Phenomics; Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs); Single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP)