Meta-QTL analysis and identification of candidate genes for drought tolerance in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

• Published in: Physiology and molecular biology of plants Vol. 26; no. 8; pp. 1713 - 1725
• Main Authors: Kumar, Anuj, Saripalli, Gautam, Jan, Irfat, Kumar, Kuldeep, Sharma, P. K., Balyan, H. S., Gupta, P. K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01-08-2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biological and Medical Physics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biophysics; Bread; Breeding; Cell Biology; Cereals; Chromosomes; Confidence intervals; Dehydration; Drought resistance; Epimerase; Genes; Glycosyltransferase; Heat shock proteins; Hsp70 protein; Kinases; Life Sciences; NAD; Plant Physiology; Plant Sciences; Protein kinase; Proteins; Quantitative trait loci; Research Article; Triticum aestivum; Wheat; Drought; Wheat; Meta-QTLs; Candidate genes
• ISSN: 0971-5894; 0974-0430
• DOI: 10.1007/s12298-020-00847-6

Meta-QTL (MQTL) analysis for drought tolerance was undertaken in bread wheat to identify consensus and robust MQTLs using 340 known QTLs from 11 earlier studies; 13 MQTLs located on 6 chromosomes (1D, 3B, 5A, 6D, 7A and 7D) were identified, with maximum of 4 MQTLs on chromosome 5A. Mean confidence intervals for MQTLs were much narrower (mean, 6.01 cM; range 2.07–19.46 cM), relative to those in original QTLs (mean, 13.6 cM; range, 1.0–119.1 cM). Two MQTLs, namely MQTL4 and MQTL12, were major MQTLs with potential for use in marker-assisting breeding. As many as 228 candidate genes (CGs) were also identified using 6 of the 13 MQTLs. In-silico expression analysis of these 228 CGs allowed identification of 14 important CGs, with + 3 to − 8 fold change in expression under drought (relative to normal conditions) in a tolerant cv. named TAM107. These CGs encoded proteins belonging to the following families: NAD-dependent epimerase/dehydratase, protein kinase, NAD(P)-binding domain protein, heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70), glycosyltransferase 2-like, etc. Important MQTLs and CGs identified in the present study should prove useful for future molecular breeding and for the study of molecular basis of drought tolerance in cereals in general and wheat in particular.