Identification of QTLs for Grain Protein Content in Russian Spring Wheat Varieties

Abstract

Most modern breeding programs aim to develop wheat (T. aestivum L.) varieties with a high grain protein content (GPC) due to its greater milling and cooking quality, and improved grain price. Here, we used a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to map single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with GPC in 93 spring bread wheat varieties developed by eight Russian Breeding Centers. The varieties were evaluated for GPC, grain weight per spike (GWS), and thousand-kernel weight (TKW) at six environments, and genotyped with 9351 polymorphic SNPs and two SNPs associated with the NAM-A1 gene. GPC varied from 9.8 to 20.0%, depending on the genotype and environment. Nearly 52% of the genotypes had a GPC > 14.5%, which is the threshold value for entry into high-class wheat varieties. Broad-sense heritability for GPC was moderate (0.42), which is due to the significant effect of environment and genotype × environment interactions. GWAS performed on mean GPC evaluated across six environments identified eleven significant marker-trait associations, of which nine were physically mapped on chromosome 6A. Screening of wheat varieties for allelic variants of the NAM-A1 gene indicated that 60% of the varieties contained the NAM-A1c allele, followed by 33% for NAM-A1d, and 5% for NAM-A1a alleles. Varieties with the NAM-A1d allele showed significantly (p < 0.01) smaller GPC than those with NAM-A1c and NAM-A1a. However, no significant differences between NAM-A1 alleles were observed for both GWS and TKW.