Mapping of the QTLs governing grain micronutrients and thousand kernel weight in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) using high density SNP markers

Karthik Kumar Manjunath; Hari Krishna; Narayana Bhat Devate; V P Sunilkumar; Divya Chauhan; Shweta Singh; C N Mishra; J B Singh; Nivedita Sinha; Neelu Jain; Gyanendra Pratap Singh; Pradeep Kumar Singh

doi:10.3389/fnut.2023.1105207

Mapping of the QTLs governing grain micronutrients and thousand kernel weight in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) using high density SNP markers

Front Nutr. 2023 Feb 10:10:1105207. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1105207. eCollection 2023.

Affiliations

¹ Division of Genetics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India.
² ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal, India.
³ Regional Station, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Indore, India.
⁴ ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, India.

Abstract

Biofortification is gaining importance globally to improve human nutrition through enhancing the micronutrient content, such as vitamin A, iron, and zinc, in staple food crops. The present study aims to identify the chromosomal regions governing the grain iron concentration (GFeC), grain zinc concentration (GZnC), and thousand kernel weight (TKW) using recombinant inbred lines (RILs) in wheat, developed from a cross between HD3086 and HI1500. The experiment was conducted in four different production conditions at Delhi viz., control, drought, heat, and combined heat and drought stress and at Indore under drought stress. Grain iron and zinc content increased under heat and combined stress conditions, while thousand kernel weight decreased. Medium to high heritability with a moderate correlation between grain iron and zinc was observed. Out of 4,106 polymorphic markers between the parents, 3,407 SNP markers were used for linkage map construction which spanned over a length of 14791.18 cm. QTL analysis identified a total of 32 chromosomal regions governing the traits under study, which includes 9, 11, and 12 QTLs for GFeC, GZnC, and TKW, respectively. A QTL hotspot was identified on chromosome 4B which is associated with grain iron, grain zinc, and thousand kernel weight explaining the phenotypic variance of 29.28, 10.98, and 17.53%, respectively. Similarly, common loci were identified on chromosomes 4B and 4D for grain iron, zinc, and thousand kernel weight. In silico analysis of these chromosomal regions identified putative candidate genes that code for proteins such as Inositol 1,3,4-trisphosphate 5/6-kinase, P-loop containing nucleoside triphosphate hydrolase, Pleckstrin homology (PH) domains, Serine-threonine/tyrosine-protein kinase and F-box-like domain superfamily proteins which play role in many important biochemical or physiological process. The identified markers linked to QTLs can be used in MAS once successfully validated.

Keywords: QTL; RILs; combined stress; drought; heat; wheat.

Grants and funding

Part of the research supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Grant number: # OPP1215722) sub grant to India for Zn mainstreaming project and National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), a network project of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).