Genome-wide association analysis reveals genetic variations and candidate genes associated with salt tolerance related traits in Gossypium hirsutum

作者：Peng Xu, Qi Guo, Shan Meng, Xianggui Zhang, Zhenzhen Xu, Wangzhen Guo, Xinlian Shen · 发表于：BMC Genomics · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1186/s12864-020-07321-3 · 被引用次数：55 · 研究领域：Research in Cotton Cultivation、Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance、Plant Molecular Biology Research

Abstract Background Cotton is more resistant to salt and drought stresses as compared to other field crops, which makes itself as a pioneer industrial crop in saline-alkali lands. However, abiotic stresses still negatively affect its growth and development significantly. It is therefore important to breed salt tolerance varieties which can help accelerate the improvement of cotton production. The development of molecular markers linked to causal genes has provided an effective and efficient approach for improving salt tolerance. Results In this study, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of salt tolerance related traits at seedling stage was performed based on 2 years of phenotype identification for 217 representative upland cotton cultivars by genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) platform. A total of 51,060 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) unevenly distributed among 26 chromosomes were screened across the cotton cultivars, and 25 associations with 27 SNPs scattered over 12 chromosomes were detected significantly (−log 10 p > 4) associated with three salt tolerance related traits in 2016 and 2017. Among these, the associations on chromosome A13 and D08 for relative plant height (RPH), A07 for relative shoot fresh matter weight (RSFW), A08 and A13 for relative shoot dry matter weight (RSDW) were expressed in both environments, indicating that they were likely to be stable quantitative trait loci (QTLs). A total of 12 salt-induced candidate genes were identified differenti...