Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute

About: Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute is a facility organization based out in New Delhi, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Small area estimation. The organization has 454 authors who have published 870 publications receiving 7987 citations.

Identification of Novel SNP in Promoter Sequence of TaGW2-6A Associated with Grain Weight and Other Agronomic Traits in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

Abstract: TaGW2 is an orthologue of rice gene OsGW2, which encodes E3 RING ubiquitin ligase and controls the grain size in rice. In wheat, three copies of TaGW2 have been identified and mapped on wheat homoeologous group 6 viz. TaGW2-6A, TaGW2-6B and TaGW2-6D. In the present study, using as many as 207 Indian wheat genotypes, we identified four SNPs including two novel SNPs (SNP-988 and SNP-494) in the promoter sequence of TaGW2-6A. All the four SNPs were G/A or A/G substitutions (transitions). Out of the four SNPs, SNP-494 was causal, since it was found associated with grain weight. The mean TGW (41.1 g) of genotypes with the allele SNP-494_A was significantly higher than mean TGW (38.6 g) of genotypes with the allele SNP-494_G. SNP-494 also regulates the expression of TaGW2-6A so that the wheat genotypes with SNP-494_G have higher expression and lower TGW and the genotypes with SNP-494_A have lower expression but higher TGW. Besides, SNP-494 was also found associated with grain length-width ratio, awn length, spike length, grain protein content, peduncle length and plant height. This suggested that gene TaGW2-6A not only controls grain size, but also controls other agronomic traits. In the promoter region, SNP-494 was present in ‘CGCG’ motif that plays an important role in Ca2+/calmodulin mediated regulation of genes. A user-friendly CAPS marker was also developed to identify the desirable allele of causal SNP (SNP-494) for use in marker-assisted selection for improvement of grain weight in wheat. Using four SNPs, five haplotypes were identified; of these, Hap_5 (G_A_G_A) was found to be a desirable haplotype having significantly higher grain weight (41.13g) relative to other four haplotypes (36.33-39.16 g).

Uncovering Genomic Regions Associated With 36 Agro-Morphological Traits in Indian Spring Wheat Using GWAS.

Abstract: Wheat genetic improvement by integration of advanced genomic technologies is one way of improving productivity. To facilitate the breeding of economically important traits in wheat, SNP loci and underlying candidate genes associated with the 36 agro-morphological traits were attempted in a diverse panel of 404 genotypes. Using Breeders’ 35K Axiom Array in a comprehensive genome-wide association study covering 4364.79 cM of the wheat genome and compressed mixed linear model, a total of 146 SNPs (-log10 P ≥ 4) were found associated with 23 traits out of 36 traits studied explaining 3.7-47.0% phenotypic variations. To reveal this a subset of 260 genotypes was characterized phenotypically for six quantitative traits [days to heading (DTH), days to maturity (DTM), plant height (PH), spike length (SL), awn length (Awn_L) and leaf length (Leaf_L)] under five environments. Gene annotations mined ~38 putative candidate genes which were confirmed using tissue and stage specific gene expression data from RNA Seq. We observed strong co-localized loci for four traits (glume pubescence, spike length, plant height and awn color) on chromosome 1B (24.64 cM) annotated five putative candidate genes. This study led to the discovery of hitherto unreported loci for some less explored traits (such as leaf sheath wax, awn attitude, glume pubescence) besides the refined chromosomal regions of known loci associated with the traits..This study provides valuable information of the genetic loci and their potential genes underlying the traits such as awn characters which are being considered as important contributors towards yield enhancement.