BMC Genomics (Oct 2018)

Integration of conventional and advanced molecular tools to track footprints of heterosis in cotton

  • Zareen Sarfraz,
  • Muhammad Shahid Iqbal,
  • Zhaoe Pan,
  • Yinhua Jia,
  • Shoupu He,
  • Qinglian Wang,
  • Hongde Qin,
  • Jinhai Liu,
  • Hui Liu,
  • Jun Yang,
  • Zhiying Ma,
  • Dongyong Xu,
  • Jinlong Yang,
  • Jinbiao Zhang,
  • Wenfang Gong,
  • Xiaoli Geng,
  • Zhikun Li,
  • Zhongmin Cai,
  • Xuelin Zhang,
  • Xin Zhang,
  • Aifen Huang,
  • Xianda Yi,
  • Guanyin Zhou,
  • Lin Li,
  • Haiyong Zhu,
  • Yujie Qu,
  • Baoyin Pang,
  • Liru Wang,
  • Muhammad Sajid Iqbal,
  • Muhammad Jamshed,
  • Junling Sun,
  • Xiongming Du

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-018-5129-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 19, no. 1
pp. 1 – 19

Abstract

Read online

Abstract Background Heterosis, a multigenic complex trait extrapolated as sum total of many phenotypic features, is widely utilized phenomenon in agricultural crops for about a century. It is mainly focused on establishing vigorous cultivars with the fact that its deployment in crops necessitates the perspective of genomic impressions on prior selection for metric traits. In spite of extensive investigations, the actual mysterious genetic basis of heterosis is yet to unravel. Contemporary crop breeding is aimed at enhanced crop production overcoming former achievements. Leading cotton improvement programs remained handicapped to attain significant accomplishments. Results In mentioned context, a comprehensive project was designed involving a large collection of cotton accessions including 284 lines, 5 testers along with their respective F1 hybrids derived from Line × Tester mating design were evaluated under 10 diverse environments. Heterosis, GCA and SCA were estimated from morphological and fiber quality traits by L × T analysis. For the exploration of elite marker alleles related to heterosis and to provide the material carrying such multiple alleles the mentioned three dependent variables along with trait phenotype values were executed for association study aided by microsatellites in mixed linear model based on population structure and linkage disequilibrium analysis. Highly significant 46 microsatellites were discovered in association with the fiber and yield related traits under study. It was observed that two-thirds of the highly significant associated microsatellites related to fiber quality were distributed on D sub-genome, including some with pleiotropic effect. Newly discovered 32 hQTLs related to fiber quality traits are one of prominent findings from current study. A set of 96 exclusively favorable alleles were discovered and C tester (A971Bt) posited a major contributor of these alleles primarily associated with fiber quality. Conclusions Hence, to uncover hidden facts lying within heterosis phenomenon, discovery of additional hQTLs is required to improve fibre quality. To grab prominent improvement in influenced fiber quality and yield traits, we suggest the A971 Bt cotton cultivar as fundamental element in advance breeding programs as a parent of choice.

Keywords