Genetic Variation for Cold Tolerance in Two Nested Association Mapping Populations
Pedro Revilla,
Ana Butrón,
Víctor Manuel Rodriguez,
Renaud Rincent,
Alain Charcosset,
Catherine Giauffret,
Albrecht E. Melchinger,
Chris-Carolin Schön,
Eva Bauer,
Thomas Altmann,
Dominique Brunel,
Jesús Moreno-González,
Laura Campo,
Milena Ouzunova,
Ángel Álvarez,
José Ignacio Ruíz de Galarreta,
Jacques Laborde,
Rosa Ana Malvar
Affiliations
Pedro Revilla
Misión Biológica de Galicia (CSIC), Apartado 28, 36080 Pontevedra, Spain
Ana Butrón
Misión Biológica de Galicia (CSIC), Apartado 28, 36080 Pontevedra, Spain
Víctor Manuel Rodriguez
Misión Biológica de Galicia (CSIC), Apartado 28, 36080 Pontevedra, Spain
Renaud Rincent
INRA, UMR de Génétique Végétale, Université Paris-Sud–CNRS–AgroParisTech, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Alain Charcosset
INRA, UMR de Génétique Végétale, Université Paris-Sud–CNRS–AgroParisTech, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Catherine Giauffret
Unité Mixte de Recherche, Institu National de la Recherche Agronomique, University of Science and Technology, 1281, Stress Abiotiques et Différenciation des Végetaux Cultivés, 59655 Péronne, France
Albrecht E. Melchinger
Institute of Plant Breeding, Seed Science and Population Genetics, Universität Hohenheim, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany
Chris-Carolin Schön
Plant Breeding, Technische Universität München, 85354 Freising, Germany
Eva Bauer
Plant Breeding, Technische Universität München, 85354 Freising, Germany
Thomas Altmann
Molecular Genetics, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), 06466 Gatersleben, Germany
Dominique Brunel
INRA-VERSAILLES, 91057 Evry, France
Jesús Moreno-González
Centro Investigacións Agrarias Mabegondo (CIAM), 15318 A Coruña, Spain
Laura Campo
Centro Investigacións Agrarias Mabegondo (CIAM), 15318 A Coruña, Spain
Milena Ouzunova
KWS SAAT AG, 37574 Einbeck, Germany
Ángel Álvarez
Estación Experimental de Aula Dei (CSIC), 50059 Saragossa, Spain
José Ignacio Ruíz de Galarreta
NEIKER-Instituto Vasco de Investigación y Desarrollo Agrario, 01192 Vitoria, Spain
Jacques Laborde
INRA, Stn Expt Mais, 40590 St Martin De Hinx, France
Rosa Ana Malvar
Misión Biológica de Galicia (CSIC), Apartado 28, 36080 Pontevedra, Spain
Cold reduces maize (Zea mays L.) production and delays sowings. Cold tolerance in maize is very limited, and breeding maize for cold tolerance is still a major challenge. Our objective was to detect QTL for cold tolerance at germination and seedling stages. We evaluated, under cold and control conditions, 919 Dent and 1009 Flint inbred lines from two nested association mapping designs consisting in 24 double-haploid populations, genotyped with 56,110 SNPs. We found a large diversity of maize cold tolerance within these NAM populations. We detected one QTL for plant weight and four for fluorescence under cold conditions, as well as one for plant weight and two for chlorophyll content under control conditions in the Dent-NAM. There were fewer significant QTL under control conditions than under cold conditions, and half of the QTL were for quantum efficiency of photosystem II. Our results supported the large genetic discrepancy between optimal and low temperatures, as the quantity and the position of the QTL were very variable between control and cold conditions. Furthermore, as we have not found alleles with significant effects on these NAM designs, further studies are needed with other experimental designs to find favorable alleles with important effects for improving cold tolerance in maize.
