Person:
Semagn, K.

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Semagn
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Semagn, K.

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  • Genome-wide association for plant height and flowering time across 15 tropical maize populations under managed drought stress and well-watered conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), 2016) Wallace, J.; Xuecai Zhang; Beyene, Y.; Semagn, K.; Olsen, M.; Prasanna, B.M.; Buckler, E.
    Genotyping breeding materials is now relatively inexpensive but phenotyping costs have remained the same. One method to increase gene mapping power is to use genome-wide genetic markers to combine existing phenotype data for multiple populations into a unified analysis. We combined data from 15 biparental populations of maize (Zea mays L.) (>2500 individual lines) developed under the Water-Efficient Maize for Africa project to perform genome-wide association analysis. Each population was phenotyped in multilocation trials under water-stressed and well-watered environments and genotyped via genotyping-by-sequencing. We focused on flowering time and plant height and identified clear associations between known genomic regions and the traits of interest. Out of ~380,000 single- nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we found 115 and 108 that were robustly associated with flowering time under well-watered and drought stress conditions, respectively, and 143 and 120 SNPs, respectively, associated with plant height. These SNPs explained 36 to 80% of the genetic variance, with higher accuracy under wellwatered conditions. The same set of SNPs had phenotypic prediction accuracies equivalent to genome-wide SNPs and were significantly better than an equivalent number of random SNPs, indicating that they captured most of the genetic variation for these phenotypes. These methods could potentially aid breeding efforts for maize in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. The methods will also help in mapping drought tolerance and related traits in this germplasm. We expect that analyses combining data across multiple populations will become more common and we call for the development of algorithms and software to enable routine analyses of this nature.
    Publication
  • Genomic prediction in biparental tropical maize populations in water-stressed and well-watered environments using low-density and GBS SNPs
    (Springer Nature, 2015) Xuecai Zhang; Pérez-Rodríguez, P.; Semagn, K.; Beyene, Y.; Babu, R.; Lopez-Cruz, M.; San Vicente Garcia, F.M.; Olsen, M.; Buckler, E.; Jannink, J.L.; Prasanna, B.M.; Crossa, J.
    One of the most important applications of genomic selection in maize breeding is to predict and identify the best untested lines from biparental populations, when the training and validation sets are derived from the same cross. Nineteen tropical maize biparental populations evaluated in multienvironment trials were used in this study to assess prediction accuracy of different quantitative traits using low-density (~200 markers) and genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), respectively. An extension of the Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Predictor that incorporates genotype × environment (GE) interaction was used to predict genotypic values; cross-validation methods were applied to quantify prediction accuracy. Our results showed that: (1) low-density SNPs (~200 markers) were largely sufficient to get good prediction in biparental maize populations for simple traits with moderate-to-high heritability, but GBS outperformed low-density SNPs for complex traits and simple traits evaluated under stress conditions with low-to-moderate heritability; (2) heritability and genetic architecture of target traits affected prediction performance, prediction accuracy of complex traits (grain yield) were consistently lower than those of simple traits (anthesis date and plant height) and prediction accuracy under stress conditions was consistently lower and more variable than under well-watered conditions for all the target traits because of their poor heritability under stress conditions; and (3) the prediction accuracy of GE models was found to be superior to that of non-GE models for complex traits and marginal for simple traits.
    Publication
  • Improving maize grain yield under drought stress and non-stress environments in Sub-Saharan Africa using marker-assisted recurrent selection
    (Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), 2016) Beyene, Y.; Semagn, K.; Crossa, J.; Mugo, S.N.; Atlin, G.; Tarekegne, A.T.; Meisel, B.; Sehabiague, P.; Vivek, B.; Oikeh, S.O.; Alvarado Beltrán, G.; Machida, L.; Olsen, M.; Prasanna, B.M.; Banziger, M.
    In marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS), a subset of molecular markers significantly associated with target traits of interest are used to predict the breeding value of individual plants, followed by rapid recombination and selfing. This study estimated genetic gains in grain yield (GY) using MARS in 10 biparental tropical maize (Zea may L.) populations. In each population, 148 to 184 F2:3 (defined as C0) progenies were derived, crossed with a single-cross tester, and evaluated under water-stressed (WS) and well-watered (WW) environments in sub- Saharan Africa (SSA). The C0 populations were genotyped with 190 to 225 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. A selection index based on marker data and phenotypic data was used for selecting the best C0 families for recombination. Individual plants from selected families were genotyped using 55 to 87 SNPs tagging specific quantitative trait loci (QTL), and the best individuals from each cycle were either intercrossed (to form C1) or selfed (to form C1S1 and C1S2). A genetic gain study was conducted using test crosses of lines from the different cycles F1 and founder parents. Test crosses, along with five commercial hybrid checks were evaluated under four WS and four WW environments. The overall gain for GY using MARS across the 10 populations was 105 kg ha−1 yr−1 under WW and 51 kg ha−1 yr−1 under WS. Across WW environments, GY of C1S2–derived hybrids were 8.7, 5.9, and 16.2% significantly greater than those of C0, founder parents, and commercial checks, respectively. Results demonstrate the potential of MARS for increasing genetic gain under both drought and optimum environments in SSA.
    Publication