The Potential Genetic Effect for Yield and Foliar Disease Resistance in Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) Assessed via Morphological and SCoT Markers

Alaa A Soliman; Manar I Mousa; Abeer M Mosalam; Zeinab E Ghareeb; Shafik D Ibrahim; Medhat Rehan; Haitian Yu; Yuhua He

doi:10.3390/plants12203645

The Potential Genetic Effect for Yield and Foliar Disease Resistance in Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) Assessed via Morphological and SCoT Markers

Plants (Basel). 2023 Oct 22;12(20):3645. doi: 10.3390/plants12203645.

Authors

Alaa A Soliman^{1

2}, Manar I Mousa¹, Abeer M Mosalam³, Zeinab E Ghareeb⁴, Shafik D Ibrahim⁵, Medhat Rehan^{6

7}, Haitian Yu², Yuhua He²

Affiliations

¹ Food Legumes Research Department, Field Crops Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza 12619, Egypt.
² Institute of Food Crops, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kunming 650205, China.
³ Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Damietta University, New Damietta 34511, Egypt.
⁴ Center Laboratory for Design and Statistical Analysis Research, Agricultural Research Center, Giza 12619, Egypt.
⁵ Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza 12619, Egypt.
⁶ Department of Plant Production and Protection, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Qassim University, Buraydah 51452, Saudi Arabia.
⁷ Department of Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr El-Sheikh 33516, Egypt.

Abstract

Faba bean is considered one of the most prominent grain legumes, with high protein content for human food consumption and livestock feed. The present study evaluated the nature of gene action and determined the genetic diversity among different populations of three crosses for resistance to foliar diseases at the molecular level. Analysis of variance exposed significant differences among the generations for all measured traits. Both dominance and additive gene effects were essential, but dominance genes, for the most part, exhibited greater effects than additive ones. This indicates an essential role for dominant genes alongside the additives one in inheriting such traits. The third cross (Marina × Giza 40) gave desired significant and positive (additive × additive) values for the number of pods/plant, seeds/plant, and seed yield/plant, in addition to desirable negative values for chocolate spot and rust characteristics. Furthermore, assessing the lines under study using seven SCoT primers disclosed three bands with recorded molecular weights of 260, 207, and 178 bp, generated by SCoT-1, SCoT-4, and SCoT-7 primers, respectively. These bands exist in the resistant parent (Marina), which could be attributed to the high-disease-resistance phenotypes, and they are absent in the sensitive parent (Giza 40) and other putative sensitive lines. Based on the molecular profiles and the genetic similarity between parents and the selected lines, the highest similarity value (0.91) was detected between Marina genotype and BC₁, revealing a high foliar disease resistance. Meanwhile, Giza 40 (susceptible to foliar diseases) exhibited the maximum value (0.93) with F₂. Additionally, cluster analysis based on genetic relationships was performed, and a high level of correlation between the results of PCR-based SCoT analysis and the foliar disease reactions was observed in the field. Consequently, this study concluded that SCoT markers created reliable banding profiles for evaluating genetic polymorphism among faba bean lines, which could be a foundation for developing an efficient breeding program.

Keywords: SCoT; Vicia faba; foliar diseases; genetic advance; genetic variability; heritability; heterosis; molecular markers.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the International Plan of Talented Young Scientist Program (Egypt-19-046) and the Yunnan Province Science and Technology Department (202202AE090003; 202302AE090011).