John Oscar S. Enriquez
Philippine Rice Research Institute,Philippines
Title: Genome-wide Association Study of Yield-Related Agronomic Traits in Philippine Rice Germplasm
Biography
Biography: John Oscar S. Enriquez
Abstract
Improving rice yield has always been one of the vital aspects for varietal improvement development. As a complex trait, it is controlled by different components and Philippine rice germplasm have huge untapped potential as genetic sources for improving production levels. We performed genome-wide association (GWA) for yield related traits in rice using an assembled diversity panel consisting of 250 modern and traditional Philippine rice varieties. The panel was evaluated for plant height (Ht), tiller number (Tn), panicle length (Pl), panicle primary (Pb) and secondary branching (Sb), grain number (Gn), fertility (Fert), grain length (Gl), grain width (Gw), and thousand grain weight (Tgw) from 2017 Dry Season (DS) to 2018 Wet Season (WS). Best Linear Unbiased Predictions (BLUPs) were computed separately for DS and WS cropping seasons and also for the overall performance of entries. Using genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS), 334,473 high quality SNP markers were discovered among the panel and used for downstream analyses. GWA was performed using FaST-LMM (factored spectrally transformed linear mixed models) with correction for population structure using principal component analyses (PCA). GWAS led to multiple associations for the evaluated traits across different chromosomes and discovered 8 putative QTLs for Ht, 2 for Tn, 4 for Pl, 1 for Pb, 2 for grain number, 3 for Fert, 4 for Gl, 1 for Gw, and 4 for Tgw. The candidate genes were reviewed and investigated in silico. QTLs and genes found in identified rice varieties can be utilized in different breeding programs to improve overall rice production.