Wheat Breeding: From Genetic Diversity to End-Use Quality

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Genetic Resources".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 5643

Special Issue Editor

Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, The Ohio State University, 1680 Madison Avenue, Wooster, OH 44691, USA
Interests: wheat breeding; genetic diversity; wheat quality improvement; wheat yield; genomic selection; genetic marker; wheat end-use quality

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wheat is one of the most widely consumed cereals in the world and can be processed into various wheat-based products. Genetic diversity is essential for wheat improvement as wheat breeding programs rely on genetic diversity to create populations with high variability from which to select new wheat varieties. However, loss of wheat genetic diversity due to modern plant breeding is an enduring global concern

The main goals of wheat breeding programs are to increase grain yield, to enhance tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress, and to improve end-use quality. Phenotyping for end-use quality traits is time consuming and expensive and requires large amount of grain only obtainable late in the breeding cycle. Therefore, application of genomic tools holds great potential for accelerating wheat breeding for grain yield, stress resilience and end-use quality, by reducing breeding cycle time and enabling selection on much larger number of breeding lines.

This Special Issue of Plants is open to all contributions covering but not limited to 1) genetic diversity for wheat improvement, 2) wheat breeding for grain yield, resistance and end-use quality, 3) application of new breeding technologies and strategies to wheat improvement, and 4) identification, development, and utilization of new genetic markers. Original research articles and reviews are welcome.

Dr. Fengyun Ma
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • wheat
  • genetic diversity
  • end-use quality
  • grain yield
  • biotic and abiotic stress
  • genomic selection
  • marker-assisted selection
  • genetic marker
  • wheat storage proteins
  • breeding

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 3408 KiB  
Article
Development and Characterization of a Novel Wheat–Tetraploid Thinopyrum elongatum 6E (6D) Disomic Substitution Line with Stripe Rust Resistance at the Adult Stage
by Biran Gong, Lei Zhao, Chunyan Zeng, Wei Zhu, Lili Xu, Dandan Wu, Yiran Cheng, Yi Wang, Jian Zeng, Xing Fan, Lina Sha, Haiqin Zhang, Guoyue Chen, Yonghong Zhou and Houyang Kang
Plants 2023, 12(12), 2311; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12122311 - 14 Jun 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1164
Abstract
Stripe rust, which is caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, is one of the most devastating foliar diseases of common wheat worldwide. Breeding new wheat varieties with durable resistance is the most effective way of controlling the disease. Tetraploid Thinopyrum elongatum [...] Read more.
Stripe rust, which is caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, is one of the most devastating foliar diseases of common wheat worldwide. Breeding new wheat varieties with durable resistance is the most effective way of controlling the disease. Tetraploid Thinopyrum elongatum (2n = 4x = 28, EEEE) carries a variety of genes conferring resistance to multiple diseases, including stripe rust, Fusarium head blight, and powdery mildew, which makes it a valuable tertiary genetic resource for enhancing wheat cultivar improvement. Here, a novel wheat–tetraploid Th. elongatum 6E (6D) disomic substitution line (K17-1065-4) was characterized using genomic in situ hybridization and fluorescence in situ hybridization chromosome painting analyses. The evaluation of disease responses revealed that K17-1065-4 is highly resistant to stripe rust at the adult stage. By analyzing the whole-genome sequence of diploid Th. elongatum, we detected 3382 specific SSR sequences on chromosome 6E. Sixty SSR markers were developed, and thirty-three of them can accurately trace chromosome 6E of tetraploid Th. elongatum, which were linked to the disease resistance gene(s) in the wheat genetic background. The molecular marker analysis indicated that 10 markers may be used to distinguish Th. elongatum from other wheat-related species. Thus, K17-1065-4 carrying the stripe rust resistance gene(s) is a novel germplasm useful for breeding disease-resistant wheat cultivars. The molecular markers developed in this study may facilitate the mapping of the stripe rust resistance gene on chromosome 6E of tetraploid Th. elongatum. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wheat Breeding: From Genetic Diversity to End-Use Quality)
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16 pages, 894 KiB  
Article
Allelic Variations in Phenology Genes of Eastern U.S. Soft Winter and Korean Winter Wheat and Their Associations with Heading Date
by Fengyun Ma, Gina Brown-Guedira, Moonseok Kang and Byung-Kee Baik
Plants 2022, 11(22), 3116; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11223116 - 15 Nov 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1485
Abstract
Wheat heading time is genetically controlled by phenology genes including vernalization (Vrn), photoperiod (Ppd) and earliness per se (Eps) genes. Characterization of the existing genetic variation in the phenology genes of wheat would provide breeding programs with [...] Read more.
Wheat heading time is genetically controlled by phenology genes including vernalization (Vrn), photoperiod (Ppd) and earliness per se (Eps) genes. Characterization of the existing genetic variation in the phenology genes of wheat would provide breeding programs with valuable genetic resources necessary for the development of wheat varieties well-adapted to the local environment and early-maturing traits suitable for double-cropping system. One hundred forty-nine eastern U.S. soft winter (ESW) and 32 Korean winter (KW) wheat genotypes were characterized using molecular markers for Vrn, Ppd, Eps and reduced-height (Rht) genes, and phenotyped for heading date (HD) in the eastern U.S. region. The Ppd-D1 and Rht-D1 genes exhibited the highest genetic diversity in ESW and KW wheat, respectively. The genetic variations for HD of ESW wheat were largely contributed by Ppd-B1, Ppd-D1 and Vrn-D3 genes. The Rht-D1 gene largely contributed to the genetic variation for HD of KW wheat. KW wheat headed on average 14 days earlier than ESW wheat in each crop year, largely due to the presence of the one-copy vrn-A1 allele in the former. The development of early-maturing ESW wheat varieties could be achieved by selecting for the one-copy vrn-A1 and vrn-D3a alleles in combination with Ppd-B1a and Ppd-D1a photoperiod insensitive alleles. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wheat Breeding: From Genetic Diversity to End-Use Quality)
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22 pages, 1655 KiB  
Article
Genetic Characterization of Spring Wheat Germplasm for Macro-, Microelements and Trace Metals
by Alexey Morgounov, Huihui Li, Sergey Shepelev, Mohsin Ali, Paulina Flis, Hamit Koksel, Timur Savin and Vladimir Shamanin
Plants 2022, 11(16), 2173; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11162173 - 21 Aug 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2094
Abstract
Wheat as a staple food crop is the main source of micro- and macronutrients for most people of the world and is recognized as an attractive crop for biofortification. This study presents a comprehensive investigation of genomic regions governing grain micro- and macroelements [...] Read more.
Wheat as a staple food crop is the main source of micro- and macronutrients for most people of the world and is recognized as an attractive crop for biofortification. This study presents a comprehensive investigation of genomic regions governing grain micro- and macroelements concentrations in a panel of 135 diverse wheat accessions through a genome-wide association study. The genetic diversity panel was genotyped using the genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) method and phenotyped in two environments during 2017–2018. Wide ranges of variation in nutrient element concentrations in grain were detected among the accessions. Based on 33,808 high-quality single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), 2997 marker-element associations (MEAs) with −log10(p-value) > 3.5 were identified, representing all three subgenomes of wheat for 15-grain concentration elements. The highest numbers of MEAs were identified for Mg (499), followed by S (399), P (394), Ni (381), Cd (243), Ca (229), Mn (224), Zn (212), Sr (212), Cu (111), Rb (78), Fe (63), Mo (43), K (32) and Co (19). Further, MEAs associated with multiple elements and referred to as pleiotropic SNPs were identified for Mg, P, Cd, Mn, and Zn on chromosomes 1B, 2B, and 6B. Fifty MEAs were subjected to validation using KASIB multilocational trial at six sites in two years using 39 genotypes. Gene annotation of MEAs identified putative candidate genes that potentially encode different types of proteins related to disease, metal transportation, and metabolism. The MEAs identified in the present study could be potential targets for further validation and may be used in marker-assisted breeding to improve nutrient element concentrations in wheat grain. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wheat Breeding: From Genetic Diversity to End-Use Quality)
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