Zhixi Tian
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Title: Dissection of the network underlying agronomic traits in soybean
Biography
Biography: Zhixi Tian
Abstract
Many agronomically important traits exhibit modularity and tend to be tightly integrated. The understanding of how traits become associated or correlated is essential in the improvement of complex traits. Soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) is a major crop of agronomic importance as the predominant source of animal feed protein and cooking oil, which was domesticated from wild soybean (G. soja Sieb. & Zucc.) in China 5,000 years ago. Understanding soybean domestication and improvement and a comprehensive dissection of the genetic basis of agronomic traits is important for soybean improvement. By analysis of several hundred resequenced wild, landrace and improved soybean accessions, we detect 230 selective sweeps and 162 selected copy number variants. Combined with previous quantitative trait loci (QTL) information, we find that, of the 230 selected regions, 96 correlate with reported oil QTLs and 21 contain fatty acid biosynthesis genes 96 of which correlate with reported oil QTLs. Moreover, we detect more than two thousands association signals via a comprehensive GWAS for dozens of agronomic traits. Through modeling analyses, we find that amount of association sites are tightly linked and form a complex network to regulate the modularity of different complex traits. This study provides valuable resources for genomics-enabled improvements in soybean molecular breeding.