QTL mapping for flowering time in a maize-teosinte population under well-watered and water-stressed conditions

Huaijun Tang; Renyu Zhang; Min Wang; Xiaoqing Xie; Lei Zhang; Xuan Zhang; Cheng Liu; Baocheng Sun; Feng Qin; Xiaohong Yang

doi:10.1007/s11032-023-01413-0

QTL mapping for flowering time in a maize-teosinte population under well-watered and water-stressed conditions

Mol Breed. 2023 Aug 17;43(9):67. doi: 10.1007/s11032-023-01413-0. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Huaijun Tang^#^{1

2}, Renyu Zhang^#¹, Min Wang¹, Xiaoqing Xie², Lei Zhang², Xuan Zhang¹, Cheng Liu², Baocheng Sun², Feng Qin^{1

3}, Xiaohong Yang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Plant Environmental Resilience and National Maize Improvement Center of China, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193 China.
² Institute of Grain Crops, Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Urumqi, 830091 China.
³ Frontiers Science Center for Molecular Design Breeding, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193 China.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 37601731
PMCID: PMC10435433 (available on 2024-08-17)
DOI: 10.1007/s11032-023-01413-0

Abstract

Maize grain yield can be greatly reduced when flowering time coincides with drought conditions, which delays silking and consequently increases the anthesis-silking interval. Although the genetic basis of delayed flowering time under water-stressed conditions has been elucidated in maize-maize populations, little is known in this regard about maize-teosinte populations. Here, 16 quantitative trait loci (QTL) for three flowering-time traits, namely days to anthesis, days to silk, and the anthesis-silking interval, were identified in a maize-teosinte introgression population under well-watered and water-stressed conditions; these QTL explained 3.98-32.61% of phenotypic variations. Six of these QTL were considered to be sensitive to drought stress, and the effect of any individual QTL was small, indicating the complex genetic nature of drought resistance in maize. To resolve which genes underlie the six QTL, 11 candidate genes were identified via colocalization analysis of known associations with flowering-time-related drought traits. Among the 11 candidate genes, five were found to be differentially expressed in response to drought stress or under selection during maize domestication, and thus represented the most likely candidates underlying the drought-sensitive QTL. The results lay a foundation for further studies of the genetic mechanisms of drought resistance and provide valuable information for improving drought resistance during maize breeding.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11032-023-01413-0.

Keywords: Drought resistance; Flowering time; Maize; QTL mapping.

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