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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #324345
Title: A study of allelic diversity underlying flowering-time adaptation in maize landraces

Author
item ROMERO-NAVARRO, ALBERTO - Cornell University
item WILCOX, MARTHA - International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
item BURGUENO, JUAN - International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
item ROMAY, MARIA CINTA - Cornell University
item SWARTS, KELLY LYNN - Cornell University
item TRACHSEL, SAMUEL - International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
item PRECIADO, ERNESTO - International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
item TERRON, ARTURO - Instituto Nacional De Investigaciones Forestales Y Agropecuarias (INIFAP)
item DELGADO, HUMBERTO VALLEJ - Instituto Nacional De Investigaciones Forestales Y Agropecuarias (INIFAP)
item VIDAL, VICTOR - Instituto Nacional De Investigaciones Forestales Y Agropecuarias (INIFAP)
item ORTEGA, ALEJANDRO - Instituto Nacional De Investigaciones Forestales Y Agropecuarias (INIFAP)
item ORTIZ-MONASTERIO, IVAN - Instituto Nacional De Investigaciones Forestales Y Agropecuarias (INIFAP)
item SAN VICENTE, FELIX - International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
item ATLIN, GARY - Gates Foundation
item WENZL, PETER - Global Crop Diversity Trust
item HEARNE, SARA - International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
item Buckler, Edward - Ed

Submitted to: Nature Genetics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/10/2017
Publication Date: 2/6/2017
Citation: Romero-Navarro, A., Wilcox, M., Burgueno, J., Romay, M., Swarts, K., Trachsel, S., Preciado, E., Terron, A., Delgado, H.O., Vidal, V., Ortega, A., Ortiz-Monasterio, I., San Vicente, F., Atlin, G., Wenzl, P., Hearne, S., Buckler IV, E.S. 2017. A study of allelic diversity underlying flowering-time adaptation in maize landraces. Nature Genetics. 46:476-480.

Interpretive Summary: Maize landraces harbor a tremendous level of natural diversity that has not been tapped for breeding substantially in the last 100 years. This genetic variation could help maize adapt to climate change, disease pressure, drought, and make the crop more sustainable. Using a unique, rapid, and large scale experimental design nearly 5,000 landraces were surveyed for diversity controlling flowering time. We identified numerous genes controlling developmental traits that have never been seen to have natural variation controlling flowering time. We have also identified for the first time that numerous natural genome rearrangements have effects on flowering time and likely the plant’s robustness. The understanding of flowering time in landraces makes tapping diversity from the landraces for other traits much more amenable.

Technical Abstract: Despite maize global importance to the food supply, most of its tremendous genetic variability remains unexploited and unanalyzed by genomics. We performed genome wide association for flowering time in a diverse panel of 3,552 maize landrace accessions from 36 countries of Latin America evaluated in 23 location-environment combinations. We reported significance at 14 candidate genes, as well as association at novel genic variants across the genome. We showed association at large structural variants, with 30.2% of explainable variance corresponding to inversions, centromeric, and pericentromic genomic regions. Together we showed good predictive ability of the most significant markers for genome wide prediction. The results and methods from this study can help guide the mining of useful alleles for flowering time and other traits from landraces into improved germplasm, and the experimental design can also be used as a guide to tap the diversity of other crop species.