Overdominance and Epistasis Are Important for the Genetic Basis of Heterosis in Brassica rapa

Abstract

To investigate the genetic basis of heterosis in Brassica rapa, an F2 population was produced from the cross of B. rapa L. subsp. chinensis (L.) Hanelt and B. rapa L. subsp. rapifera Metzg. Trait performances of the F1 hybrid showed evident mid parent heterosis, which varied from 18.55% to 101.62% for the 11 traits investigated. A total of 23 main effect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) were detected for biomass and its component traits, which could explain 4.38% to 47.80% of the phenotypic variance, respectively. Sixty-five percent of these QTLs showed obvious overdominance. Epistasis analysis detected 444 two-locus interactions for the 11 traits at the threshold of P < 0.005. Some of them remained significant when more stringent threshold were set. These results suggested that overdominance and epistasis might play an important role as the genetic basis of heterosis in B. rapa.