Population structure and genetic association studies in wheat

Abstract

To define genetic diversity and population structure among a collection of wheat cultivars and lines of mainly European origin, Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP) technology was used to characterize a population of 95 bread wheat genotypes. In total, 860 of 960 tested markers were polymorphic and could be used for further analysis. Four subgroups of wheat genotypes were identified using Neighbor Joining (NJ) cluster analysis. Two of this subgroups comprised mainly varieties from Hungarian breeding programs (GrI, GrII); one subgroup contained varieties from Western Europe (Grill) and one contained varieties with various origin (GrIV). GrI mainly contained genotypes originated from crosses including GK Kincső (Arthur 71/Sava) as one of the parents, or derivatives of this genotype. The results of this study should provide valuable information for future association mapping studies using this wheat collection. Furthermore, the genetic diversity and distance data combined with specific genotype data can be used by breeders to guide selection of crossing parents.