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Genetics
Genetic control of branching in foxtail millet
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*Department of Biology, University of Missouri, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St Louis, MO 63121; and
John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Colney, Norwich NR4 7UH, United Kingdom
Communicated by Peter H. Raven, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO, April 23, 2004 (received for review January 31, 2004)
| Abstract |
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| Materials and Methods |
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10-cM intervals. F3 offspring selfed from 120 of the original 127 F2 plants were used to evaluate the number and location of QTL controlling the morphological characters distinguishing the two parents. QTL Trials. Multiple replicates of the 120 F3 families were grown in two separate trials in a climate-controlled greenhouse at the University of Missouri (St. Louis). Fifteen plants (one per pot) of each family were used per trial, and position of pots was randomized to minimize the effect of differences in light intensity and other environmental variables within the greenhouse. Parental populations were grown in trial 2 but not in trial 1. Trial 1 was grown in May-June and trial 2 in July-August, with standardized soil, fertilizer, and water conditions, and a 16-h day length maintained by artificial lighting when necessary. Trial 2 had both a higher natural light intensity and higher average temperatures than trial 1 although temperatures in both trials were kept between 25°C and 35°C.
Measurement of Phenotypic Traits. Plants were harvested after the seeds had ripened. During harvesting, measurements were made of the number of tillers and the number of axillary branches. Tillers were defined as those branches coming from the base of the plant, often forming adventitious roots, whereas axillary branches were found in the axils of leaves on each tiller (Fig. 1).
Data Transformation. Analyses were done on tiller number and number of axillary branches. Means were calculated for each trait for each of the families (13). Tiller number was normally distributed, but the distribution of the number of axillary branches was skewed [Fig. 2; Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test; P < 0.05] (13). This skew was corrected by means of a square root transformation of the data, after which a K-S test indicated that the distribution of the number of axillary branches was normalized in both trials (Fig. 2; K-S test; P > 0.05). Both raw and transformed values for axillary branch number were analyzed for presence and position of QTL, and most of the same QTL were detected (Fig. 3).
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Epistasis. Epistatic interactions were identified by examining each pair of markers for each trait and testing for a significant interaction term, by using the program EPISTACY (19). Significant interactions were reported at P < 0.001, and the type of interaction (additive by additive, additive by dominant, dominant by additive, or dominant by dominant) was reported as significant at P < 0.01 (see Table 3, which is published as supporting information on the PNAS web site).
Mapping Additional Maize Clones. Additional RFLP markers from maize were added to the original map by using probes from the University of Missouri (Columbia), a teosinte branched1 (tb1) cDNA clone kindly provided by J. Doebley (University of Wisconsin, Madison), and probes amplified from foxtail millet by using primers for terminal ear1 (te1) (20), phytochrome B (phyb) (21), and knotted1 (kn1) (unpublished primers provided by Anthony Verboom, University of Missouri, St. Louis). Southern hybridizations were performed against restricted F2 DNA of the original S. italica acc. B100 x S. viridis acc. A10 population (11, 22). Marker data were scored by two people separately, and then results were cross-checked. Position of these markers on the genetic map was established by using the two-point linkage routine in MAPMAKER 3 (23).
Identification of possible candidate genes from maize was accomplished by defining intervals on the maize map by using markers mapped on both maize and foxtail millet. In some cases, gaps between common markers were larger than the 1-LOD confidence intervals of the QTL, but estimates of QTL positions were done as precisely as possible. MAIZEGDB (24) and GRAMENE (25, 26) were used to identify genes that had mutant phenotypes in which vegetative branching was affected. These genes were then located on the foxtail millet map by means of the common markers.
Tests for Cosegregation of tb1 with Phenotype. The relationship between variation in tb1 alleles and the phenotypic data was tested by means of ANOVA and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The ANCOVA tested the relationship between tb1 and one of the traits in a trial while using the other trait in that trial as the covariate. In doing so, the variance associated with the covariate was removed from the analysis of tb1 vs. the trait of interest (13, 27).
Identification of Candidate Genes from the Rice Genome. Here, we used regions defined by markers common between foxtail millet and rice that contained the identified QTL. These regions were in most cases covered by a number of unassembled contigs (Oryza sativa var japonica, http://rgp.dna.affrc.go.jp/). Each of these contigs was scanned by using FGENESH (28), and identified ORFs were translated and compared with ORFs from other contigs from the same QTL region to reduce redundancies by using BLAST (29). The final data set of translated proteins for each region was used to query the NCBI database (29). Hits with eV values <10-7 were evaluated, and possible candidate genes were identified.
| Results |
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QTL Detection. In the two trials, we found 11 and 14 QTL, respectively (Table 1). These we divide into (i) those that are reproducible between trials, (ii) those with a general effect on branching but not fully reproducible, and (iii) those that affect only one trait in one trial.
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Some QTL seem to have a general effect on branching although this effect is not always significant at the P < 0.01 level for both traits (Table 1 and Fig. 3). These putative loci occur on chromosomes II, III, IV, V, and VI in trial 1, and on V, VII, and IX in trial 2. The third set of QTL appear in only one trial or the other. Variation in number and position of detected QTL between trials is evidence for genotype by environment (G x E) interactions.
The amount of phenotypic variation explained was high in both cases although it varied from trial to trial. Significant QTL explained 66-73% of the variation for tillering, and 65-99% of the variation for axillary branches (Table 1). In general, individual QTL were only of moderate size although one QTL for axillary branching on chromosome VI explained between 25% and 38% of the variation (Table 1). LOD score peaks that just failed to reach significance were found in both trials, and these may represent further QTL (Fig. 3).
Each trait in each trial was controlled by QTL of both positive and negative effect, indicating that foxtail millet contains alleles that act to increase branching as well as the expected alleles that act to decrease branching (Table 1). The additive effects of these QTL, if all alleles were of the same sign, are sufficient to explain the range in variation seen in the F3 hybrids.
Epistasis. Significant digenic epistatic effects between marker loci were observed between markers associated with QTL and between unassociated markers (see Table 3). Only one epistatic effect was significant for tillering (in trial 1), but there were eight significant epistatic effects for axillary branching in trial 1, and nine in trial 2 (P < 0.001) (Table 3). The effects associated with these epistatic interactions explained between 13% and 27% of the phenotypic variance.
Comparative Mapping. We used comparative mapping to determine whether the loci controlling vegetative branching in foxtail millet were the same as identified in maize. We confirmed colinearity, predicted from rice and other cereal alignments, between the millet and maize genomes by placing 23 new RFLP markers and four genes from maize on the millet genome map (Fig. 4). All markers fell into regions that would be predicted on the basis of synteny with other markers. In particular, we verified that millet chromosomes V and IX, which contain QTL affecting both tillering and axillary branching, are indeed colinear with regions on maize chromosomes 3 and 1, respectively, that also contain QTL for vegetative branching (1, 31).
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We directly tested the role of tb1 in controlling vegetative branching by analyzing the relationship between tb1 and each of the traits in each of the trials. The ANOVA analyses showed a highly significant relationship between tb1 and tiller number in trial 2 (P = 0.001), a weakly significant relationship between tb1 and axillary branch number in trial 1 (P = 0.046), and nonsignificant relationships between tb1 and the other two trait/trial combinations (Table 2). When each of the traits was used in turn as a covariate for the other trait in trials 1 and 2, the weak relationship between tb1 and axillary branching in trial 2 disappears although the relationship between tb1 and tiller number in trial 2 remains highly significant (Table 2).
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| Discussion |
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The range of F3 mean phenotypic values for tillering in trial 2 matched that of the difference between the two parents whereas the range for axillary branch number greatly exceeded that of the two parents. Each parent has axillary branch QTL with both positive and negative effects, so that, under random segregation in the F2 generation, these alleles will be found in all combinations in the different F2 (and F3) hybrids. Some of the hybrids will have all alleles of positive or negative sign, producing the extremes of the trait distributions observed. This phenomenon has been termed "transgressive" segregation (30), because the hybrid values transgress the range of values found between the two parents, and has been observed in many crosses between species (39, 40). However, in maize, there are no reports of transgressive segregation for tillering, and QTL are of the same sign, all supporting a reduction in tillering between teosinte and maize (1, 5).
Summation of the additive effects in trial 2 accounts for variable amounts of the difference in phenotypic values between the parents. Additive effects account for
50% of the difference in tiller number, but almost none of the difference in axillary branch number. Several QTL have the expected positive effect on tiller and branch number, corresponding to the larger number of branches in green millet relative to foxtail. For axillary branching, however, the QTL with the largest additive effect is negative in sign, indicating that the green millet allele causes fewer branches and the foxtail millet allele more.
Significant digenic epistatic effects were found between some markers, whether associated with QTL or not (Table 3). Epistatic effects may account for some of the discrepancies between the range of parental values and the sum of the additive effects. Patterns of combinatorial additive effects and digenic epistasis have also been observed in sunflower hybrids (41).
Some QTL that affect tillering also affect axillary branching, suggesting a degree of common control between the two traits. This finding is not surprising, given that they are both branching phenotypes. The commonalities are more evident in trial 1 than in trial 2, a finding supported by the significant correlation between the two traits in trial 1 but not in trial 2. The QTL that affect both traits presumably have an effect on general plant robustness, increasing overall branching.
Eight QTL were found in both trials, four for tillering and four for axillary branching. We infer that the repeatable QTL represent loci that control differences in branching between the two species. Two of the QTL on chromosome V, one for tillering (115 and 122 cM in trials 1 and 2, respectively) and one for axillary branching (117 and 103 cM in trials 1 and 2, respectively), may reflect the same locus because they are close to each other. However, the signs of their effects are opposite, implying either that they are two separate loci affecting branching in different directions, or that the same locus has opposite effects on tillering and axillary branching. The sign of these QTL suggests that the allele for increased axillary branching is carried by the green millet parent whereas that for increased tillering is carried by the foxtail millet parent.
In our mapping population, some of the variation in tillering is controlled by loci separate from those controlling axillary branching. A similar result has been reported in pearl millet (P. glaucum) (42), a species more closely related to foxtail millet (43) than either is to maize. Grass taxonomists have also frequently noted a lack of correlation between the presence of tillers and axillary branches (44).
Correlation of QTL with tb1. QTL for tillering in trial 2 and for axillary branching in both trials are in the same region as tb1 but explain only
9% of the variance for tillering and 4-14% for axillary branching. ANOVAs found a significant relationship between tb1 and tillering in trial 2 and a weakly significant relationship with axillary branching in trial 1 (P = 0.001 and P = 0.046, respectively). However, the two traits were strongly correlated in trial 1, and, when the effect of tillering was removed statistically by means of analysis of covariance, the relationship with axillary branching was no longer significant. This lack of relationship between tb1 and axillary branching was unexpected. Thus, the tb1 region plays a role in branching, but it is not the only, or the most important, locus controlling vegetative branching in foxtail millet.
Other Candidate Genes for Vegetative Branching. We searched for candidate genes for vegetative branching other than tb1 by comparative mapping of QTL onto the maize genome using common markers. This method helped eliminate potential candidate genes with the appropriate mutant phenotype but that map outside the QTL region. For example, three QTL for branching on foxtail millet chromosome V are found between the common markers umc321 and umc60, and two between umc60 and terminal ear1 (te1) (Fig. 3). The markers appear in the same order on maize chromosome 3. The maize genes Corn-grass1 and -2, whose mutant phenotypes display profuse tillering, map to maize 3, but are placed by synteny between umc32 and umc321 and therefore apparently do not correspond to any of the foxtail millet QTL. Although we cannot rule out local genome rearrangements that might place such genes in the QTL in millet, such an approach allows us to prioritize our research effort on candidate genes that are found near detected QTL.
A number of genes were found through analysis of rice genome regions orthologous to QTL in foxtail millet. This list of genes is limited by the incomplete assembly and annotation of the rice genome, coupled with the large size of our QTL. Future fine-mapping will be necessary to delimit the regions more precisely.
| Conclusions |
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Our data show that the domestication syndrome caused by human selection for a particular phenotype (10) may not always reflect corresponding loci in disparate species. Simple extrapolation from maize (the most closely related model system) to foxtail millet would have overestimated the role of tb1 in tillering and axillary branching. Extrapolation would also have failed to identify other more important loci. In contrast, the combination of QTL and comparative genome analysis has identified a number of possible candidate genes responsible for control of these traits. Although many of the loci underlying domestication QTL in foxtail millet thus seem to be different from those in maize, it will be intriguing to discover whether they correspond to important loci in other cereals. It will be of interest to know whether the correspondence of genomic regions identified by Patterson et al. (7, 8) is particularly evident for traits of the inflorescence, which are presumably the direct targets of human selection, rather than vegetative traits, which are presumably selected indirectly.
| Acknowledgements |
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| Footnotes |
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Present address: Departments of Crop and Soil Sciences and Plant Biology, Miller Plant Sciences Building, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. ![]()
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: adoust{at}umsl.edu.
© 2004 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
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