Phenotypic variations of wheat cultivars from the North China Plain in response to cadmium stress and associated single nucleotide polymorphisms identified by a genome-wide association study

A diverse panel of 132 wheat cultivars from the North China Plain was collected and evaluated in terms of their phenotypic variations in response to Cd stress, and subject to a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the phenotypic variations at the seedling stage. Significant phenotypic variations with high heritability were observed among the wheat cultivars under 40 μM Cd for the studied traits, including root length (RL), shoot length (SL), root and shoot dry biomass (RDW and SDW), root and shoot Cd content (RCD and SCD), and Cd translocation factor (TF). The mixed linear model-based association analysis detected 17 novel significant marker-trait associations (MTAs), four of which were significant at a genome-wide scale. Most of the significant MTAs controlled TF and explained 17.17% to 26.47% of the phenotypic variations. 表征了黄淮麦区近30年来育成的主栽品种及其衍生的优异品系苗期在镉胁迫下的表型变异，并应用该自然群体的SNP标记数据进行了全基因组关联分析，获得了若干镉积累相关表型的新颖标记，其中4个在全基因组范围具有显著性；进一步分析了镉转移系数关联标记在小