A Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism of TaGS5 Gene Revealed its Association with Kernel Weight in Chinese Bread Wheat

TaGS5 genes were cloned from bread wheat and were physically mapped on 3AS and 3DS. Sequencing results revealed that a SNP was found in the sixth exon of TaGS5-A1 gene. The SNP resulted in amino acid change from alanine to serine at the 303 bp position of TaGS5-A1. These two alleles were designated as TaGS5-A1a (alanine at the 303 bp position) and TaGS5-A1b genes (serine at the 303-bp position). Analysis of association of TaGS5-A1 alleles with agronomic traits indicated that cultivars with TaGS5-A1b possessed wider kernel width and higher thousand-kernel weight, as well as significantly lower plant height, spike length, and internode length below spike than those of cultivars with TaGS5-A1a over 3 years. These trait differences between TaGS5-A1a and TaGS5-A1b genotypes were larger in landraces than in modern cultivars. This finding suggested that TaGS5 gene played an important role in modulating yield-related traits in the landraces, which possibly resulted from numerous superior genes gathering in modern cultivars after strong artificial selection. The preferred TaGS5-A1b haplotype underwent very strong positive selection in Chinese modern wheat breeding, but not in Chinese landraces. Expression analysis of the TaGS5-A1 gene indicated that TaGS5-A1b allele possessed significantly higher expression level than TaGS5-A1b allele in differently developmental seeds. This study could provide relatively superior genotype in view of agronomic traits in wheat breeding programs. Likewise, this study could offer important information for the dissection of molecular and genetic basis of yield-related traits.