Association Study of Seed-Yield Related Traits for Jatropha curcas L. in Mexico

抄録

Jatropha curcas L. has attracted worldwide recognitions in recent years, because its seed oil is suitable to substitute for fossil fuels, and it can grow in semi-arid lands. It has been traditionally planted in tropical and subtropical regions, but recent mass cultivation as a biofuel crop is still severally restricted by its low seed production, showing that it is necessary to develop high-yielding varieties. In this paper, to reveal genes or genomic regions underlying yield-related traits, the maker-trait association analysis was conducted in a wide collection of Mexican J. curcas accessions, on the basis of 67 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and eight retrotransposon-based insertion polymorphisms (RBIP) markers, by using mixed linear model method (MLM). As a result, eight significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) were found within six traits and six markers. Mean phenotypic variation explained by the markers was 0.24, as indicated by R² value. Among them, the marker JCG0061, that showed significant associations with fruit weight (R² = 0.4391) and seed yield per plant (R² = 0.3151), was identified in a previously-reported interspecific quantitative trait loci (QTL) for the female flower number. This suggests that the genomic region linked to JCG0061 is critical for yield-related traits. Our study would contribute to breeding program for biofuel production and development of J. curcas in tropical and subtropical areas with the semi-arid climate.