QTL detection for bread wheat processing quality in a nested association mapping population of semi-wild and domesticated wheat varieties

Abstract

Background: Wheat processing quality is an important factor in evaluating overall wheat quality and dough characteristics are important in assessing the processing quality of wheat. As an important germplasm resource, semi-wild wheat plays an important role in the study of wheat processing quality.Results: In this study, four dough rheological characteristics were therefore collected in four environments using a nested association mapping (NAM) population, consisting of semi-wild and domesticated wheat varieties, which was used to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for wheat processing quality. A total of 49 QTL for wheat processing quality were detected, explaining 0.36–10.82% of the phenotypic variation. These QTL were located on all wheat chromosomes except for 2D, 3A, 3D, 6B, 6D and 7D. Compared to previous studies, 29 QTL were newly identified. Four novel QTL, QMlPH-1B.4, QMlPH-3B.4, QWdEm-1B.2 and QWdEm-3B.2, were stably identified in three or more environments, of which QMlPH-3B.4 was a major QTL. Moreover, eight important genetic regions for wheat processing quality were identified on chromosomes 1B, 3B and 4D, which showed pleiotropy for dough characters. In addition, out of 49 QTL, 15 favorable alleles came from three semi-wild parents, suggesting that the QTL alleles provided by the semi-wild parent were unutilized in domesticated varieties.Conclusions: The results show that the semi-wild wheat varieties can enrich the existing wheat gene pool and provide broader variation resources for wheat genetic research.