QTL Mapping and Candidate Gene Prediction of Lateral Branch Length of Melon (Cucumis melo)
YANG Sen-Yao1, Liu Hai-Ying1, GAO Lu-Yin1, YANG Lu-Ming1,2, ZHU Hua-Yu1,2, HU Jian-Bin1,2*, MA Chang-Sheng1, SUN Shou-Ru1
1 College of Horticulture, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, China; 2 Henan Key Laboratory of Fruit and Cucurbit Biology, Zhengzhou 450002, China
Abstract：Lateral branch length, one of the most important architectural traits, acts as an effective breakthrough point for architecture improvement of vine plants, such as cucumber (Cucumis sativas), melon (C. melo), and watermelon (Citrullus lanatus). In this study, the short-lateral-branching material D581 (♀) and long-lateral-branching material H465 (♂) were used as parents to establish F2 and F2∶3 populations, which were further used to study the variation pattern of lateral branch length and then map the QTLs controlling the lateral branch length as well as predict the candidate genes related to this trait. The results showed that the variation of lateral branch length revealed a typical normal distribution in F2 and F2∶3 populations, and the estimated broad sense heritability of the 6 statistic indices of lateral branch traits exceeded 60%. A total of 253 SSR and InDel markers were adopted to construct a genetic map containing 12 linkage groups, covering 1 433.3 cM distance of the melon genome with an average distance of 5.67 cM between the markers. Totally, 31 QTLs were detected in spring and autumn with the phenotypic variance explained (PVE) for a single QTL varying from 6.39% to 16.46%. Seven QTLs detected by various statistic indices or in various environments were co-located in SSR029716-ECM88 region of LG8, with a cumulative PVE of 75.66%. Subsequently, by means of deep resequencing of the parents (>30×) and development of new InDels in the targeted region, this region was further delimited to a 185 kb region which contained 31 annotated genes. Of these genes, three genes were previously reported to participate in plant hormone signal transduction and predicted as the putative candidate genes controlling lateral branch development in melon. The QTLs and candidate genes identified in this study acted as helpful directions for the current gene discovery of lateral branch traits of melon, offering a theoretical basis for molecular improvement of plant architecture in melon.
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