| dc.contributor | Weber, A., Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, United States, Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, 425 Henry Mall, Madison, WI 53706, United States; Clark, R.M., Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, United States, Department of Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Vaughn, L., Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, United States; Sánchez-Gonzalez, J.D.J., Centro Universitario de Ciencias Biológicas Y Agropecuarias, Universidad de Guadalajara, Jalisco, CP45110, Mexico; Yu, J., Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, United States; Yandell, B.S., Department of Statistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, United States; Bradbury, P., United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, Washington, DC 20250, United States; Doebley, J., Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, United States | |
| dc.description.abstract | In plants, many major regulatory genes that control plant growth and development have been identified and characterized. Despite a detailed knowledge of the function of these genes little is known about how they contribute to the natural variation for complex traits. To determine whether major regulatory genes of maize contribute to standing variation in Balsas teosinte we conducted association mapping in 584 Balsas teosinte individuals. We tested 48 markers from nine candidate regulatory genes against 13 traits for plant and inflorescence architecture. We identified significant associations using a mixed linear model that controls for multiple levels of relatedness. Ten associations involving five candidate genes were significant after correction for multiple testing, and two survive the conservative Bonferroni correction. zfl2, the maize homolog of FLORICAULA of Antirrhinum, was associated with plant height. zap1, the maize homolog of APETALA1 of Arabidopsis, was associated with inflorescence branching. Five SNPs in the maize domestication gene, teosinte branched1, were significantly associated with either plant or inflorescence architecture. Our data suggest that major regulatory genes in maize do play a role in the natural variation for complex traits in teosinte and that some of the minor variants we identified may have been targets of selection during domestication. Copyright © 2007 by the Genetics Society of America. | |
