Suitability of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism Arrays Versus Genotyping-By-Sequencing for Genebank Genomics in Wheat

Genebank genomics promises to unlock valuable diversity for plant breeding but first, one key question is which marker system is most suitable to fingerprint entire genebank collections. Using wheat as model species, we tested for the presence of an ascertainment bias and investigated its impact on estimates of genetic diversity and prediction ability obtained using three marker platforms: simple sequence repeat (SSR), genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS), and array-based SNP markers. We used a panel of 378 winter wheat genotypes including 190 elite lines and 188 plant genetic resources (PGR), which were phenotyped in multi-environmental trials for grain yield and plant height. We observed an ascertainment bias for the array-based SNP markers, which led to an underestimation of the molecular diversity within the population of PGR. In contrast, the marker system played only a minor role for the overall picture of the population structure and precision of genome-wide predictions. Interestingly, we found that rare markers contributed substantially to the prediction ability. This combined with the expectation that valuable novel diversity is most likely rare suggests that markers with minor allele frequency deserve careful consideration in the design of a pre-breeding program.