Genome-wide association studies on DNA pools identifies promising maize landraces and genomic regions to develop next generation varieties

Abstract

International audienceLandraces have a large diversity that could help to cope with climatic change and low input agriculture. To identify promising maize landraces and genomic regions to enlarge the genetic diversity of modern varieties, the DNA pools of 156 American and European landraces as well as 264 French landraces were genotyped with a SNP array. French landraces were evaluated for different agronomic traits. They were compared to elite cultivars produced across 20th century, represented by 327 inbred lines. We identified several genomic regions involved in agronomic traits, environmental adaptation, tolerance to abiotic stresses by detecting selective footprints and studying association with both environmental variables and agronomic traits. Promising landraces were identified by estimating their genomic contribution to inbred lines and by genomic selection. Most landraces do not have closely related lines while 10 landraces have a lot and cumulated half of the total contribution to inbred lines