Grain Fe and Zn contents linked SSR markers based genetic diversity in rice

Abstract

Rice is critical for sustainable food and nutritional security; however, nominal micronutrient quantities in grains aggravate malnutrition in rice-eating poor populations. In this study, we evaluated genetic diversity in grain iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) contents using trait-linked simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in the representative subset of a large collection of local and exotic rice germplasm. Results demonstrated that aromatic fine grain accessions contained relatively higher Fe and Zn contents in brown rice (BR) than coarse grain accessions and a strong positive correlation between both mineral elements. Genotyping with 24 traitlinked SSR markers identified 21 polymorphic markers, among which 17 demonstrated higher gene diversity and polymorphism information content (PIC) values, strongly indicating that markers used in current research were moderate to highly informative for evaluating the genetic diversity. Population structure, principal coordinate and phylogenetic analyses classified studied rice accessions into two fine grain specific and one fine and coarse grain admixture subpopulations. Single marker analysis recognized four ZnBR and single FeBR significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) contributing 15.41-39.72% in total observed phenotypic variance. Furthermore, high grain Fe and Zn contents linked marker alleles from significant MTAs were also identified. Collectively, these results indicate a wide genetic diversity exist in grain Fe and Zn contents of studied rice accessions and reveal perspective for marker-assisted biofortification breeding.

Inflorescence Transcriptome Sequencing and Development of New EST-SSR Markers in Common Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum)

“…These results are consistent with those of most plant species previously studied [ 49 , 50 ]. However, our nucleotide motif frequency was slightly different from that of legumes [ 51 ] and cereals [ 52 ]. The main reasons for the difference in the distribution frequency of SSR motif types were the different SSR search criteria, the different search algorithms, and the different selection pressures between plants.…”

Mineral nutrients in plants under changing environments: A road to future food and nutrition security

“…Additionally, molecular markers were used to assess the genetic diversity of rice grain Fe and Zn levels in the representative groups of native and exotic rice accessions. When compared to coarse grain accessions, aromatic rice accessions had higher levels of Fe and Zn (Raza et al., 2020). Thus, MAB is helpful in increasing the effectiveness of selection early in the breeding cycle and aiding in the improvement of target traits.…”

Toward Integrated Multi-Omics Intervention: Rice Trait Improvement and Stress Management

“…Taking into account the nutritional quality, the genetic diversity of rice grain iron and zinc levels in the representative groups of local and exotic rice accessions was evaluated by SSR markers. Aromatic rice fine grain accessions contained high iron and zinc levels in brown rice in comparison to coarse grain accessions (Raza et al, 2020). Neoterically, GWAS and functional analysis of 520 rice accessions identified OsZIP18 as the prime genetic determinant for regulating branched-chain amino acid levels (Sun et al, 2020).…”