Genetic dissection of transcript, metabolite, growth and wood property traits in an F2 pseudo-backcross pedigree of Eucalyptus grandis x E. urophylla

Journal Article · Tue Sep 13 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · BMC Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-6561-5-s7-o7· OSTI ID:1629476

Magdalena van Dyk, Maria ^[1]; Kullan, Anand R. K. ^[1]; Mizrachi, Eshchar ^[1]; Hefer, Charles A. ^[1]; Jansen van Rensburg, L’Zanne ^[1]; Tschaplinski, Timothy J. ^[2]; Cushman, Katherine C. ^[2]; Engle, Nancy E. ^[2]; Tuskan, Gerald A. ^[2]; Jones, Nicoletta ^[3]; Kanzler, Arnulf ^[3]; Myburg, Alexander A. ^[1]

---

1. Univ. of Pretoria (South Africa). Dept. of Genetics, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Inst (FABI)
2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Biosciences Division
3. Sappi Forests Research (South Africa)

E. grandis is used extensively for the production of pulp and paper due to its rapid growth, good form and ease of vegetative propagation. E. urophylla exhibits tolerance to fungal diseases that limit the growth of E. grandis in tropical and subtropical regions. Interspecific hybrids of these two species are, therefore, commonly used to produce fast-growing, disease tolerant hybrids for clonal eucalypt plantations in tropical and subtropical regions (e.g., South Africa, Congo and Brazil). These hybrids often exhibit superior growth and wood quality compared to the pure species, but the underlying genetic basis of the observed hybrid superiority remains unclear. Phenotypic variation observed in interspecific mapping populations has been used to identify QTLs in several genetic linkage studies in Eucalyptus. However, QTL intervals have generally been wide (20 to 30 cM) and may include several hundred genes. To bridge the gap between fine mapping and QTL validation studies, the expression levels of genes and metabolites in individuals from the segregating population can be treated as quantitative traits and used for eQTL and mQTL mapping, respectively. Co-localization of wood property, expression and metabolite QTLs will facilitate the identification of positional candidate genes and other components of regulatory networks underlying phenotypic variation.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science Division
• OSTI ID: 1629476
• Journal Information: BMC Proceedings, Vol. 5, Issue S7; ISSN 1753-6561
• Publisher: BioMed Central
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES