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Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is the second most important oil seed crop in Europe. The seeds are used as confection seeds and, more importantly, to generate an edible vegetable oil, which in normal varieties is rich in the polyunsaturated fatty acid linoleic acid. Linoleic acid is biosynthesized from oleic acid through activity of the oleate desaturase FATTY ACID DESATURASE 2 (FAD2), which in seeds is encoded by FAD2-1, a gene that's present in single copy in sunflowers. Defective FAD2-1 expression enriches oleic acid, yielding the high oleic (HO) acid trait, which is of great interest in oil seed crops, since HO oil bears benefits for both food and non-food applications. Chemical mutagenesis has previously been used to generate sunflower mutants with reduced FAD2-1 expression and here it was aimed to produce further genetic material in which FAD2-1 activity is lost and the HO trait is stably expressed. For this purpose, a sunflower mutant population was created using gamma irradiation and screened for fad2-1 mutants with a newly developed HPLC-based fatty-acid profiling system that's suitable for high-throughput analyses. With this approach fad2-1 knock-out mutants could be isolated, which stably hyper-accumulate oleic acid in concentrations of 85-90% of the total fatty acid pool. The genetic nature of these new sunflower lines was characterized and will facilitate marker development, for the rapid introgression of the trait into elite sunflower breeding material.

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Background and Aims: Roots facilitate acquisition of macro- and micronutrients, which are crucial for plant productivity and anchorage in the soil. Phosphorus (P) is rapidly immobilized in the soil and hardly available for plants. Adaptation to P scarcity relies on changes in root morphology towards rooting systems well suited for topsoil foraging. Root-system architecture (RSA) defines the spatial organization of the network comprising primary, lateral and stem-derived roots and is important for adaptation to stress conditions. RSA phenotyping is a challenging task and essential for understanding root development. Methods: In this study, 19 traits describing RSA were analysed in a diversity panel comprising 194 sorghum genotypes, fingerprinted with a 90-k single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array and grown under low and high P availability. Key Results: Multivariate analysis was conducted and revealed three different RSA types: (1) a small root system; (2) a compact and bushy rooting type; and (3) an exploratory root system, which might benefit plant growth and development if water, nitrogen (N) or P availability is limited. While several genotypes displayed similar rooting types in different environments, others responded to P scarcity positively by developing more exploratory root systems, or negatively with root growth suppression. Genome-wide association studies revealed significant quantitative trait loci (P < 2.9 × 10-6) on chromosomes SBI-02, SBI-03, SBI-05 and SBI-09. Co-localization of significant and suggestive (P < 5.7 × 10-5) associations for several traits indicated hotspots controlling root-system development on chromosomes SBI-02 and SBI-03. Conclusions: Sorghum genotypes with a compact, bushy and shallow root system provide potential adaptation to P scarcity in the field by allowing thorough topsoil foraging, while genotypes with an exploratory root system may be advantageous if N or water is the limiting factor, although such genotypes showed highest P uptake levels under the artificial conditions of the present study.

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KEY MESSAGE: A QTL on sorghum chromosome SBI-06 putatively improves field emergence under low-temperature conditions. Low temperatures decisively limit seedling emergence and vigor during early growth of sorghum and, thus, strongly impair geographical expansion. To broaden sorghum cultivation to temperate regions, the establishment of cold-tolerant genotypes is a prioritized breeding goal. The present study aims at the quantification of seedling emergence and survival under chilling temperatures and the detection of marker-trait associations controlling temperature-related seedling establishment. A diversity set consisting of 194 biomass sorghum lines was subjected to extensive phenotyping comprising field trials and controlled environment experiments. The final emergence percentage (FEP) under field conditions was significantly reduced under cold stress. Broad-sense heritability was h 2 = 0.87 for FEP in the field and h 2 = 0.93 for seedling survival rate (SR) under controlled conditions. Correlations between FEP in the field and under controlled conditions were low; higher correlations were observed between field FEP and SR in controlled environments. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were conducted using 44,515 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and revealed eight regions with suggestive marker-trait associations for FEP and SR on chromosomes SBI-01, -02, -03, -06, -09, and -10 (p < 5.7 × 10-5) and a significant association on SBI-06 for field FEP (p < 2.9 × 10-6). Although not significant under controlled conditions, SR of genotypes carrying the minor allele on the field FEP quantitative trait loci (QTL) on SBI-06 was on average 13.1% higher, while FEP under controlled conditions was on average 9.7% higher with a linearly decreasing effect with increasing temperatures (R 2 = 0.82). Promising candidate genes putatively conferring seedling cold tolerance were identified.

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KEY MESSAGE: We have developed a SNP array for sunflower containing more than 25 K markers, representing single loci mostly in or near transcribed regions of the genome. The array was successfully applied to genotype a diversity panel of lines, hybrids, and mapping populations and represented well the genetic diversity of cultivated sunflower. Results of PCoA and population substructure analysis underlined the complexity of the genetic composition of current elite breeding material. The performance of this genotyping platform for genome-based prediction of phenotypes and detection of QTL with improved resolution could be demonstrated based on the re-evaluation of a population segregating for resistance to Sclerotinia midstalk rot. Given our results, the newly developed 25 K SNP array is expected to be of great utility for the most important applications in genome-based sunflower breeding and research. ABSTRACT: Genotyping with a large number of molecular markers is a prerequisite to conduct genome-based genetic analyses with high precision. Here, we report the design and performance of a 25 K SNP genotyping array for sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.). SNPs were discovered based on variant calling in de novo assembled, UniGene-based contigs of sunflower derived from whole genome sequencing and amplicon sequences originating from four and 48 inbred lines, respectively. After inclusion of publically available transcriptome-derived SNPs, in silico design of the Illumina(®) Infinium iSelect HD BeadChip yielded successful assays for 22,299 predominantly haplotype-specific SNPs. The array was validated in a sunflower diversity panel including inbred lines, open-pollinated varieties, introgression lines, landraces, recombinant inbred lines, and F2 populations. Validation provided 20,502 high-quality bi-allelic SNPs with stable cluster performance whereby each SNP marker represents a single locus mostly in or near transcribed regions of the sunflower genome. Analyses of population structure and quantitative resistance to Sclerotinia midstalk rot demonstrate that this array represents a significant improvement over currently available genomic tools for genetic diversity analyses, genome-wide marker-trait association studies, and genetic mapping in sunflower.

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BACKGROUND: Sunflower belongs to the largest plant family on earth, the genomically poorly explored Compositae. Downy mildew Plasmopara halstedii (Farlow) Berlese & de Toni is one of the major diseases of cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.). In the search for new sources of downy mildew resistance, the locus Pl(ARG)on linkage group 1 (LG1) originating from H. argophyllus is promising since it confers resistance against all known races of the pathogen. However, the mapping resolution in the Pl(ARG) region is hampered by significantly suppressed recombination and by limited availability of polymorphic markers. Here we examined a strategy developed for the enrichment of molecular markers linked to this specific genomic region. We combined bulked segregant analysis (BSA) with next-generation sequencing (NGS) and de novo assembly of the sunflower transcriptome for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery in a sequence resource combining reads originating from two sunflower species, H. annuus and H. argophyllus. RESULTS: A computational pipeline developed for SNP calling and pattern detection identified 219 candidate genes. For a proof of concept, 42 resistance gene-like sequences were subjected to experimental SNP validation. Using a high-resolution mapping population, 12 SNP markers were mapped to LG1. We successfully verified candidate sequences either co-segregating with or closely flanking Pl(ARG). CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first successful example to improve bulked segregant analysis with de novo transcriptome assembly using next generation sequencing. The BSTA pipeline we developed provides a useful guide for similar studies in other non-model organisms. Our results demonstrate this method is an efficient way to enrich molecular markers and to identify candidate genes in a specific mapping interval.

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With its small, diploid and completely sequenced genome, sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) is highly amenable to genomics-based breeding approaches. Here, we describe the development and testing of a robust single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array platform that enables polymorphism screening for genome-wide and trait-linked polymorphisms in genetically diverse S. bicolor populations. Whole-genome sequences with 6× to 12× coverage from five genetically diverse S. bicolor genotypes, including three sweet sorghums and two grain sorghums, were aligned to the sorghum reference genome. From over 1 million high-quality SNPs, we selected 2124 Infinium Type II SNPs that were informative in all six source genomes, gave an optimal Assay Design Tool (ADT) score, had allele frequencies of 50% in the six genotypes and were evenly spaced throughout the S. bicolor genome. Furthermore, by phenotype-based pool sequencing, we selected an additional 876 SNPs with a phenotypic association to early-stage chilling tolerance, a key trait for European sorghum breeding. The 3000 attempted bead types were used to populate half of a dual-species Illumina iSelect SNP array. The array was tested using 564 Sorghum spp. genotypes, including offspring from four unrelated recombinant inbred line (RIL) and F2 populations and a genetic diversity collection. A high call rate of over 80% enabled validation of 2620 robust and polymorphic sorghum SNPs, underlining the efficiency of the array development scheme for whole-genome SNP selection and screening, with diverse applications including genetic mapping, genome-wide association studies and genomic selection.

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