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Dissecting the genetic architecture of important traits that enhance wild germplasm resource usage in modern maize breeding

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Abstract

Domestication and improvement of maize (Zea mays L.) from ~ 10,000 years ago has produced remarkable alterations from its wild ancestor, teosinte. To investigate the genetic basis of changes in plant and inflorescence traits, we developed a teosinte–maize intermated population. More than 200 common quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and 44 QTL clusters were identified underlying 13 vegetative and reproductive traits. Among them, few common QTLs with major effects were observed, which supported previous hypotheses that a small number of major loci can explain a large portion of phenotypic changes during domestication. Additionally, we found many moderate or minor QTLs that might have critical roles in shaping plant architecture and enhancing grain yield of modern maize. Although maize has better performance for the traits studied here, teosinte still harbored desirable alleles in some of the common QTLs. Furthermore, we integrated multiple datasets and predicted candidate genes underlying these QTLs. This study elucidates the genetic basis of these vegetative and reproductive traits in maize and teosinte, and suggests the possibility of improving maize by teosinte re-domestication using a small number of loci.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Fang Xu (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) for critically reviewing the manuscript. We thank Mallory Eckstut, Ph.D., from Liwen Bianji, Edanz Editing China (www.liwenbianji.cn/ac), for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (2016YFD0100303), National Science and Technology Support Program (2015BAD02B01), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (31701431).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, 1 Shizishan Street, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei, China

    Lei Liu, Juan Huang, Lili He, Nian Liu, Yanfang Du, Rui Hou, Fazhan Qiu & Zuxin Zhang

  2. Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Grain Crops, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, 434025, China

    Hewei Du

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  1. Lei Liu
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  2. Juan Huang
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  3. Lili He
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  4. Nian Liu
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  5. Yanfang Du
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  7. Hewei Du
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  8. Fazhan Qiu
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  9. Zuxin Zhang
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Contributions

ZZ and FQ designed the experiments. LL, JH, LH, NL, RH, WD, and YD performed most of the experiments and analyzed the data. LL and ZZ wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zuxin Zhang.

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Liu, L., Huang, J., He, L. et al. Dissecting the genetic architecture of important traits that enhance wild germplasm resource usage in modern maize breeding. Mol Breeding 39, 157 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-019-1061-9

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