Genome-Wide Association Studies of Plant Architecture-Related Traits in the Chinese Soybean Mini Core Collection
Wentao Ding,
Xiaoli Zhang,
Dandan Liu,
Chen Li,
Congcong Wang,
Ruidong Sun,
Xiangpei Jin,
Na Guo,
Jinming Zhao,
Han Xing
Affiliations
Wentao Ding
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Xiaoli Zhang
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Dandan Liu
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Chen Li
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Congcong Wang
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Ruidong Sun
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Xiangpei Jin
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Na Guo
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Jinming Zhao
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Han Xing
National Center for Soybean Improvement, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetics and Breeding for Soybean, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Plant architecture traits are closely related to plant biomass, lodging, and photosynthetic efficiency, which in turn affect soybean yield. In this study, we investigated a Chinese soybean mini core collection consisting of 224 germplasm accessions for four plant architecture-related traits (plant height (PH), number of nodes on main stem (NN), branch number (BN), and stem diameter (DI)) under three environments and conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) based on 1514 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A total of 41 SNPs were found to be significantly associated with PH, NN, BN, and DI in two or more environments. Among these SNPs, 15 were located in regions in which plant architecture-related QTLs had been reported in previous studies, and 26 were new genetic loci. In addition, 18 potential candidate genes for plant architecture-related traits were obtained by predicting the genes in the interval of four large-effect markers (BARC-017097-02199, Map-2213, BARC-014639-01604, and Map-2223). This research will help to illuminate the genetic basis of soybean plant architecture-related traits and accelerate the process of plant architecture breeding by molecular marker-assisted selection in soybean.
