Mapping a major QTL for hairy leaf sheath introgressed from Aegilops tauschii and its association with enhanced grain yield in bread wheat

Abstract

Aegilops tauschii, the diploid D genome progenitor of the hexaploid wheat, has been used to improve modern common wheat by creating synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW) as a bridging mechanism for wheat breeding. Most Ae. tauschii accessions have hairiness on the leaf sheath, whereas the hexaploid common wheat is usually glabrous. In this study a major QTL for leaf sheath hairiness (LSH) was detected on the long arm of chromosome 4D in two recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations produced from SHW-derived cultivar Chuanmai 42. The QTL peak was flanked by markers Xbarc48 and Xbarc1183/ D_GB5Y7FA01AGCKH_224, and explained more than 75 % of the phenotypic variation. The QTL allele for LSH was contributed by Chuanmai 42, and originated from Ae. tauschii. In both RIL populations the QTL allele producing hairy leaf sheath was significantly and positively associated with increased grain yield, grain weight and grain weight per spike. Moreover, most Chuanmai 42-derived cultivars have inherited the hairy leaf sheath character. These findings suggest that the hairy leaf sheath gene in Chuanmai 42 can be applied in marker-assisted selection (MAS) as a morphologically selectable marker in breeding for high yield.Keywords DArT marker Á Leaf sheath hairiness Á QTL mapping Á SNP marker Á Triticum aestivum Á Yield enhancement Hongshen Wan and Yumin Yang have contributed equally to this article.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

Mapping QTLs for enhancing early biomass derived from Aegilops tauschii in synthetic hexaploid wheat

“…A major QTL on 4DL associated with leaf sheath hairiness in a synthetic derivative of the wheat variety Chuanmai42 was identified, and its wild allele was found to have originated from Ae. tauschii, which has significantly increased grain weight, grain yield, and yield-related characters [20].…”

Polyploidization enhancing genetic recombination of the ancestral diploid genome in the evolution of hexaploid wheat

“…Ae. tauschii is a widely distributed (van Slageren, 1994) and genetically diverse species (Lubbers et al, 1991; Dvorak et al, 1998; Schneider et al, 2008), with superiority in resistance to disease, pest and tolerance to environmental stresses, which could be expressed in a hexaploid genetic background, as lots of related QTLs or genes had been mapped to D genome of synthetic wheat (Nkongolo et al, 1991; Innes and Kerber, 1994; Cox and Hatchett, 1994; Thompson and Haak, 1997; Yang et al, 2003; Zhu et al, 2005; Miranda et al, 2006; Ryan et al, 2010; Sohail et al, 2011; Olson et al, 2013a, 2013b; Wan et al, 2015). But the D genome of the first bread wheats were originated from only a small part of Ae.…”

“…Ae. tauschii worked as a gene repertoire for modern wheat adaptation (Jia et al, 2013; Li et al, 2014b), for their superiority in resistance to disease (Innes and Kerber, 1994; Cox et al, 1994; Yang et al, 2003; Miranda et al, 2006; Olson et al, 2013a, 2013b) and pest (Cox and Hatchett, 1994; Thompson and Haak, 1997; Zhu et al, 2005), tolerance to environmental stresses (Schachtman et al, 1991; Lan et al, 1997; Pritchard et al, 2002; Ryan et al, 2010; Sohail et al, 2011), and yield enhancement (Li et al, 2002; Huang et al, 2004; Kumar et al, 2007; Wan et al, 2015), all of which could be fixed as heterosis in hexaploid wheat theoretically.…”

A donor-specific QTL, exhibiting allelic variation for leaf sheath hairiness in a nested association mapping population, is located on barley chromosome 4H

“…Recently, Wang et al [ 17 ] mapped a QTL controlling leaf sheath hairiness on chromosome 4HL in an association mapping diversity panel of 569 barley cultivars using 1,042 SNP markers from the Illumina GoldenGate oligonucleotide pool assay 1 (BOPA1). Furthermore, Wan et al [ 18 ] detected a strong QTL on chromosome 4D associated with leaf sheath hairiness in wheat. The wild allele at this QTL originated from Aegilops tauschii , a wild progenitor of the hexaploid wheat, and was significantly associated with increased grain yield, grain weight and grain weight per spike [ 18 ].…”

“…Furthermore, Wan et al [ 18 ] detected a strong QTL on chromosome 4D associated with leaf sheath hairiness in wheat. The wild allele at this QTL originated from Aegilops tauschii , a wild progenitor of the hexaploid wheat, and was significantly associated with increased grain yield, grain weight and grain weight per spike [ 18 ]. The authors suggested that DNA markers for leaf sheath hairiness could be used for marker-assisted selection to increase yield in wheat [ 18 ].…”