Dissecting the Genetic Architecture of Leaf Rust Resistance in Wheat by QTL Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Leaf rust is an important disease that causes significant yield losses in wheat. Many studies have reported the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling leaf rust resistance; therefore, QTL meta-analysis has become a useful tool for identifying consensus QTL and refining QTL positions among them. In this study, QTL meta-analysis was conducted using reported results on the number, position, and effects of QTL for leaf rust resistance in bread and durum wheat. Investigation of 14 leaf rust resistance traits from 19 studies involving 20 mapping populations and 33 different parental lines provided information for 144 unique QTL that were projected onto the Wheat Composite 2004 reference map. In total, 35 meta-QTL for leaf rust resistance traits were identified in 17 wheat chromosomes and 13 QTL remained as unique QTL. The results will facilitate further work on the cloning of QTL for pyramiding minor- and partial-effect resistance genes to develop varieties with durable resistance to leaf rust.

Dissecting the old Mediterranean durum wheat genetic architecture for phenology, biomass and yield formation by association mapping and QTL meta-analysis

“…QTLs were projected following the homothetic approach proposed by Chardon et al [39]. The SI were defined as reported by [31] and estimated at 95% on the consensus map using the empirical formula proposed by [40] and [41]:…”

“…One way to synthesize and integrate all QTL information is the QTL meta-analysis approach developed by [19]. QTL meta-analyses have been performed in the last years mostly in bread wheat for grain traits [20], plant height [21], sprouting tolerance and dormancy [22], dietary fiber content in grain [23], grain yield [24], crop phenology [25], and resistance to septoria tritici blotch [26], powdery mildew [27], fusarium head blight [28–30], leaf rust [31] and Ug99 stem rust [32]. However, studies in durum wheat are scarce.…”

Meta‐analysis and overview analysis of quantitative trait locis associated with fatty acid content in soybean for candidate gene mining

“…Meta-analysis has been used to study QTLs associated with various traits in maize, rice, wheat, soybean and other crops. QTLs related to drought tolerance in maize (Li et al, 2010), flowering time and yield in maize (Soriano et al, 2014), grain protein concentration in maize (Bao, Liang, & Zhao, 2016) and root traits in maize (Liu, Miao, Xue, Gao, & Jun, 2016); panicle-related traits in rice (Wu et al, 2016) and grain size/weight in rice (Daware, Srivastava, Singh, Parida, & Tyagi, 2017); grain traits in common wheat (Tyagi, Mir, Balyan, & Gupta, 2015), leaf rust resistance in wheat (Soriano & Royo, 2015); grain dietary fibre content in bread wheat (Quraishi et al, 2011), and grain water-soluble carbohydrate content in wheat (Yajun et al, 2016); and other related traits have previously been integrated using the meta-analysis approach. The first application of meta-analysis in soybean was the integration of original QTLs relating to soybean cyst nematode (SCN) resistance (Guo et al, 2006).…”

Unraveling the molecules hidden in the gray shadows of quantitative disease resistance to pathogens

“…This is the challenge of statistical QTL meta-analyses. The detection of common QTLs and the identification of co-locating resistance candidate genes from different experiments and populations have been recently achieved using QTL metaanalyses in maize to find resistance genes for virus diseases (Wang et al, 2016), leaf rust in wheat (Soriano and Royo, 2015) and verticillium wilt in cotton .…”