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A QTL on Chromosome 3B in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum) Is Associated with Leaf Width Under Well-Watered and Water-Deficit Conditions

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Abstract

At an early stage of crop development, the rate of growth is largely determined by leaf characteristics. Plants with rapid leaf area development could save more water for transpiration and crop growth. In our study, a recombinant inbred family was used to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling leaf length (LL), leaf width (LW), and leaf area (LA) in wheat seedlings under well-watered (WW) and PEG-induced water-deficit (WD) conditions. A total of five QTL for LW, LL, and LA were detected, most of which were reported for the first time. A “constitutive” QTL for LW (Qheb.LW-3B), located on the long arm of chromosome 3B, was consistently detected under two water conditions, explaining 17.7 % of the phenotypic variance with a LOD value of 7.20 under WW condition and 13.3 % of the phenotypic variance with a LOD value of 4.87 under WD condition. The other four “adaptive” QTL were detected under a single water condition only. These QTL include the following: Qheb.LW-5B for LW (WW condition), Qheb.LL-3A, and Qheb.LL-5B for LL (WD condition) and Qheb.LA-3B for LA (WW condition). Four pairs of near isogenic lines (NILs) were developed to validate the effects of Qheb.LW-3B. The allele from the parent “CSCR6” increased the LW by an average of 8.2 % under WW condition and 13.8 % under WD condition, respectively. The position and effects of Qheb.LW-3B was confirmed. Qheb.LW-3B would be a valuable genetic resource to improve wheat seedling early establishment. The NILs we have generated would be useful for further characterization of Qheb.LW-3B, in studying its interaction with other traits of agronomic importance and in developing markers that can be reliably used to follow this major locus.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr. Chunji Liu from CSIRO Agriculture Flagship for providing the seeds of the QTL mapping population used in this experiment and also for his valuable suggestions during the preparation of the manuscript. This research was partially funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant LP120200830.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. School of Plant Biology, Faculty of Science and The Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

      Jun Ma & Guijun Yan

    2. North China Key Laboratory for Crop Germplasm Resources of Education Ministry, Department of Plant Genetics and Breeding, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, 071001, China

      Guangyue Du, Xihuan Li & Guijun Yan

    3. CSIRO Agriculture Flagship, 306 Carmody Road, Brisbane, QLD, 4067, Australia

      Jun Ma

    4. Shijiazhuang Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Shijiazhuang, 050021, China

      Jinkao Guo

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    1. Jun Ma
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    Correspondence to Jinkao Guo or Guijun Yan.

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    Jun Ma and Guangyue Du contributed equally to this work.

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    Ma, J., Du, G., Li, X. et al. A QTL on Chromosome 3B in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum) Is Associated with Leaf Width Under Well-Watered and Water-Deficit Conditions. Plant Mol Biol Rep 34, 690–697 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-015-0952-0

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-015-0952-0

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