Abstract
Yield and quality are two crucial breeding objects of wheat therein grain weight and grain protein content (GPC) are two key relevant factors correspondingly. Investigations of their genetic mechanisms represent special significance for breeding. In this study, 199 F2 plants and corresponding F2:3 families derived from Nongda3753 (ND3753) and its EMS-generated mutant 564 (M564) were used to investigate the genetic basis of larger grain and higher GPC of M564. QTL analysis identified a total of 33 environmentally stable QTLs related to thousand grain weight (TGW), grain area (GA), grain circle (GC), grain length (GL), grain width (GW), and GPC on chromosomes 1B, 2A, 2B, 4D, 6B, and 7D, respectively, among which QGw.cau-6B.1, QTgw.cau-6B.1, QGa.cau-6B.1, and QGc.cau-6B.1 shared overlap confidence interval on chromosome 6B. This interval contained the TaGW2 gene playing the same role as the QTLs, so TaGW2-6B was cloned and sequenced. Sequence alignment revealed two G/A SNPs between two parents, among which the SNP in the seventh exon led to a premature termination in M564. A KASP marker was developed based on the SNP, and single-marker analysis on biparental populations showed that the mutant allele could significantly increase GW and TGW, but had no effect on GPC. Distribution detection of the mutant allele through KASP marker genotyping and sequence alignment against databases ascertained that no materials harbored this allele within natural populations. This allele was subsequently introduced into three different varieties through molecular marker-assisted backcrossing, and it was revealed that the allele had a significant effect on simultaneously increasing GW, TGW, and even GPC in all of three backgrounds. Summing up the above, it could be concluded that a novel elite allele of TaGW2-6B was artificially created and might play an important role in wheat breeding for high yield and quality.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. Jiewen Xing (China Agricultural University) for valuable suggestions on the text and Dr. Ganggang Guo (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) for providing the Perten DA7200 instrument.
Funding
This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFD1200902) and STI 2030-Major Project (2023ZD04069).
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Mingshan You conceived the project; Chan Bi and Chaoxiong Wei developed the populations and constructed the linkage map; Chan Bi, Huanhuan Zhao, Jiazheng Yu, Xintian Shi, Yuan Zhang, and Qiaofeng Liu collected phenotypic data; Chan Bi performed the experiments; Jinghui Li and Shaozhe Wen assisted in experiments; Chan Bi and Mingshan You analyzed experimental results and wrote the manuscript; Jinghui Li, Yufeng Zhang, and Baoyun Li helped to revise the manuscript.
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Bi, C., Wei, C., Li, J. et al. A novel variation of TaGW2-6B increases grain weight without penalty in grain protein content in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Mol Breeding 44, 15 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-024-01455-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-024-01455-y