Association mapping for five agronomic traits in the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

The common bean is the most important grain legume and a major source of protein in many developing countries. We analysed the following traits: pod fibre (PF), seeds per pod (SPP), plant type (PT), growth habit (GH), and days to flowering (DF) for a set of diverse common bean accessions and determined whether such traits were associated with amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), simple sequence repeat (SSR) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers.

In this study, 66 common bean genotypes were used and genotyped with 233 AFLP, 105 SNP and 80 SSR markers. The association analysis between markers and five traits was performed using a General Linear Model (GLM) in Trait Analysis by aSSociation, Evolution and Linkage (TASSEL). The population structure was determined using the STRUCTURE software, and seven groups (K = 7) were identified among genotypes. The associations for such traits were identified and quantified; 62 markers were associated with the five traits.

This study demonstrated that association mapping using a reasonable number of markers, distributed across the genome and with the appropriate number of individuals harboured to detect DNA markers linked to the traits of PF, SPP, PT, GH and DF in common bean.