Dietary Allowance for adults and Ionomic Characterization of Maize Kernels in the Intermated B 73 x Mo 17 Population
Year: 2012

Dietary mineral deficiencies affect nearly half of the people on our planet, largely due to poverty. Enhancing nutritional quality or biofortification represents an efficient and sustainable potential solution to this massive public health problem. To create biofortified crops, one must understand the genetic and environmental factors that influence the ionome, or collection of mineral nutrients, in the target organism and tissue. We describe the use of quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping to characterize the maize (Zea mays L. grain ionome illustrated by the intermated B73 x Mo17 (IBM) recombinant inbred population. Ionomic profiling was applied to field grown materials from Florida, North Carolina, and New York. Twenty seven QTL were detected for 10 traits derived from the North Carolina and New York grown maize explaining between 4 and 46% of the variance observed. For biofortification to succeed, QTL effective in multiple environments need to be the targets for improvement efforts. Florida grown maize were sampled shallowly to provide a low cost dataset to evaluate the models based on the combined North Carolina and New York traits. Twenty five QTL were detected as significant in two or more locations using ANoVA on the original single location and/or site data; 12 QTL were found to be significant in Florida. While this strategy may have not detected every potential QTL from our data, we suggest these QTL effective in multiple environments represent a starting position for the biofortification of maize grain. I.R. Baxter, USDA ARS, Plant Genetics Research Unit, 975 North Warson Road, St. Louis, MO 63132; J.L. Gustin, and A.M. Settles, University of Florida, Horticultural Sciences Department, 1117 Fifield Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611; O.A. Hoekenga, USDA ARS, Robert Holley Center for Agriculture and Health, 538 Tower Road, Ithaca, NY 14853. Corresponding authors (Ivan. Baxter@ars.usda.gov and Owen.Hoekenga@ars.usda.gov) Abbreviations: BLUP, best linear unbiased predictor; CIM, composite interval mapping; CG, concentration in the grain; FL2007, the Plant Science Research and Education Center in Citra, FL, in 2007; IBM, intermated B73 x Mo17; ICP MS, ion coupled plasma mass spectrometry; ICP OES, ion coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy; IQR, interquartile range; KWt, 25 kernel weight; LOD, logarithm of the odds; MIM, multiple interval mapping; NC2005, the Central Crops Research Station in Clayton, NC, in 2005;  Aurora, NY, in 2003; NY2005, the Musgrave Farm in Aurora, NY, in 2005; QTL, quantitative trait locus/loci, RI, recombinant inbred; RIL, recombinant inbred line.  (2013) doi: 10.2135/cropsci2012.02.0135 Freely available online through the author supported open access option.  No part of this periodical may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Permission for printing and for reprinting the material contained herein has been obtained by the publisher.