Cloning, characterization of TaGS3 and identification of allelic variation associated with kernel traits in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract

BackgroundGrain weight is an important yield component. Selection of advanced lines with heavy grains show high grain sink potentials and strong sink activity, which is an increasingly important objective in wheat breeding programs. Rice OsGS3 has been identified as a major quantitative trait locus for both grain weight and grain size. However, allelic variation of GS3 has not been characterized previously in hexaploid wheat.ResultsWe cloned 2445, 2393, and 2409 bp sequences of the homologs TaGS3-4A, TaGS3-7A, and TaGS3-7D in wheat ‘Changzhi 6406’, a cultivar that shows high grain weight. The TaGS3 genes each contained five exons and four introns, and encoded a deduced protein of 170, 169, and 169 amino acids, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis of plant GS3 protein sequences revealed GS3 to be a monocotyledon-specific gene and the GS3 proteins were resolved into three classes. The length of the atypical Gγ domain and the cysteine-rich region was conserved within each class and not conserved between classes. A single-nucleotide polymorphism in the fifth exon (at position 1907) of TaGS3-7A leads to an amino acid change (ALA/THR) and showed different frequencies in two pools of Chinese wheat accessions representing extremes in grain weight. Association analysis indicated that the TaGS3-7A-A allele was associated with higher grain weight in the natural population. The TaGS3-7A-A allele was favoured in global modern wheat cultivars but the allelic frequency varied among different wheat-production regions of China, which indicated that this allele is of potential utility to improve wheat grain weight in certain wheat-production areas of China.ConclusionsThe novel molecular information on wheat GS3 homologs and the KASP functional marker designed in this study may be useful in marker-assisted breeding for genetic improvement of wheat.

Identification and Validation of New Stable QTLs for Grain Weight and Size by Multiple Mapping Models in Common Wheat

“…The physical interaction of the proteins encoded by TaDA1-A and TaGW2-6B was significantly associated with grain size and weight (Liu H. et al, 2019;Liu J. et al, 2019). TaGS3-7A, a homologous gene of OsGS3, was shown to be associated with grain weight (Yang et al, 2019b). In addition, TaTGW6 (Hu et al, 2016a), Tabas1 (Zhu et al, 2016), TaCKX4 (Chang et al, 2015), TaFlo2 (Sajjad et al, 2017), TaTGW-7A (Hu et al, 2016b), TaCYP78A3 (Ma M. et al, 2015), and TaGL3 (Yang et al, 2019a) are also significantly associated with grain weight or size.…”

QTL mapping of yield components and kernel traits in wheat cultivars TAM 112 and Duster

“…Similar to KPS and SPM, TKW QTL have been detected on all wheat chromosomes ( Assanga et al., 2017 ; Sun et al., 2017 ; Li et al., 2018 ; Ma et al., 2018 ; Duan et al., 2020 ; Muhammad et al., 2020 ; Pang et al., 2020 ; Isham et al., 2021 ; Ren et al., 2021 ). TaGL3 ( Yang et al., 2019a ), TaGS1 ( Guo et al., 2013 ), TaGS3 ( Yang et al., 2019b ), TaGS5 ( Wang et al., 2015 ), TaGW2 ( Su et al., 2011 ), TaGW7 ( Wang et al., 2019 ), TaGW8 ( Yan et al., 2019 ), TaTGW6 ( Hanif et al., 2016 ), and TaTGW7 ( Hu et al., 2016 ), have been characterized for association with kernel size and TKW. Genes with pleiotropic effects on multiple yield-related traits of wheat were also reported, such as Ppd1 , responsible for photoperiod and HD regulation.…”

Genome-Wide Association Analysis for Hybrid Breeding in Wheat

“…The TaGW8-B1a allele increases TKW and spikelet number per spike and provides higher yields than cultivars with the TaGW8-B1b allele [ 58 ]. KASP markers for TKW have also been developed [ 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ].…”