Molecular Dissection of a Genomic Region Governing Root Traits Associated with Drought Tolerance Employing a Combinatorial Approach of QTL Mapping and RNA-seq in Rice

摘要

Drought is considered as one of the major obstacles for progressive yield enhancement and stability in rice, especially in rain-fed conditions. Being a complex trait, drought is regulated by numerous quantitative trait loci (QTL), of which, however, very few underlying genes have been cloned. In the present investigation, we made an attempt to uncover the candidate gene(s) behind a major QTL, rdw8.1 governing drought tolerance traits viz., root dry weight and root length. The targeted QTL has been delimited to 366.75 kb from 10.17 Mb by QTL mapping in BC1F2 population. Further, the targeted region was delineated employing next-generation sequencing based RNA-seq. Based on the QTL mapping and RNA-seq approaches, the plausible candidate gene underlying the QTL region was identified as a wound inducible protein (LOC_Os08g08090). This gene can be of potential value to enhance the drought tolerance of the elite rice varieties through molecular breeding.