Association Mapping of Malting Quality Data from Western Canadian Two-row Barley Cooperative Trials

摘要

Re-examining historical datasets is a proposed use for association mapping (AM) and is particularly valuable when the data describes time-consuming and/or expensive to measure traits. A collection of 91 elite two-row malting barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) lines entered in the western Canadian Cooperative Two-Row Barley Trials over a 13- yr period were analyzed by AM to identify markers associated with seven malting quality traits. A linear mixed-model incorporating population structure and familial relatedness identified 27 diversity array technology (DArT) markers associated with malting quality. These markers will assist selection of parents with complementary allele combinations for future crosses and help identify progeny with the desired alleles. Putative candidate expressed sequence tags (ESTs) responsible for marker-trait associations were identified for 19 of the 27 DArT markers and include genes important for seed storage protein accumulation, gibberellin-mediated gene expression, seed storage mobilization, and dormancy. Efforts to identify novel variability in these genes may present opportunities to improve malting quality.