Effectiveness of TaDreb-B1 and 1-FEH w3 KASP Markers in Spring and Winter Wheat Populations for Marker-Assisted Selection to Improve Drought Tolerance

Abstract

Due to the advances in DNA markers, kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) markers could accelerate breeding programs and genetically improve drought tolerance. Two previously reported KASP markers, TaDreb-B1 and 1-FEH w3, were investigated in this study for the marker-assisted selection (MAS) of drought tolerance. Two highly diverse spring and winter wheat populations were genotyped using these two KASP markers. The same populations were evaluated for drought tolerance at seedling (drought stress) and reproductive (normal and drought stress) growth stages. The single-marker analysis revealed a high significant association between the target allele of 1-FEH w3 and drought susceptibility in the spring population, while the marker–trait association was not significant in the winter population. The TaDreb-B1 marker did not have any highly significant association with seedling traits, except the sum of leaf wilting in the spring population. For field experiments, SMA revealed very few negative and significant associations between the target allele of the two markers and yield traits under both conditions. The results of this study revealed that the use of TaDreb-B1 provided better consistency in improving drought tolerance than 1-FEH w3.

Research on Plant Genomics and Breeding 2.0

“…Molecular markers are essential tools in breeding for multiple desirable traits, including Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP), Insertion and Deletion (Indel), and Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR), among others. Eltaher et al conducted an association analysis of two KASP markers, TaDreb-B1 and 1-FEH w3, with drought tolerance in both spring and winter wheat at the seedling stage, revealing that the TaDreb-B1 marker was more effective in selecting for drought tolerance than the 1-FEH w3 allele [ 15 ]. Yang et al employed bulked segregant analysis (BSA) pooling to map a gene controlling grain length in rice at a 96K interval and identified a KASP marker capable of effectively differentiating between grain lengths [ 16 ].…”

Research on Plant Genomics and Breeding

“…Two previously reported KASP markers, TaDreb-B1 and 1-FEH w3, were employed for the marker-assisted selection (MAS) of drought tolerance. These two molecular markers were used to detect drought tolerance in winter and spring wheat populations, and the correlation of TaDreb-B1 with drought tolerance was better than that of marker 1-FEH w3 [10]. Cytokinin is an important hormone that determines the wheat yield.…”

Impact of Drought Stress on Yield-Related Agronomic Traits of Different Genotypes in Spring Wheat

“…Drought tolerance in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a complex quantitative trait regulated by many genes distributed over a huge genome [19,27,28]. Improving drought tolerance in wheat efficiently by selecting only one or a few superior alleles is difficult.…”