Identification and genome-wide association analysis of wheat FHB resistance genes

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a devastating fungal disease in wheat, causing significant yield losses and deterioration of grain quality under severe conditions. In this study, a genome-wide association study was conducted with 448 accessions using genotyping data generated by the 660K SNP array. Nine relatively stable FHB resistance loci were identified on chromosomes 1B, 1D, 2D, 5B, 7A and 7B, respectively. Each QTL accounted for 4.1-10.4% of the phenotypic variation. Among them, QFhb.nwafu-7BS, and QFhb.nwafu-7BL are novel loci. Polymorphisms of flanking AQP marker AX-94527414 was developed for QFhb.nwafu-7BL, which could be useful for marker assisted selection of FHB resistance. Correlation analysis indicated that variation in FHB response was independent of plant height, spike length, and uppermost internode length across the three environments. These results offer new resistance resources for FHB resistance breeding and insights for marker-assisted selection and gene cloning.