Interchromosomal linkage disequilibrium analysis reveals strong indications of sign epistasis in wheat breeding families.

ABSTRACT: Additive gene action is assumed to underlie quantitative traits, but the eventual poor performance of elite wheat lines as parents suggests that epistasis could be the underlying genetic architecture. Sign epistasis is characterized by alleles having either a beneficial or detrimental effect depending on the genetic background, which can result in elite lines that fail as parents in certain parental combinations. Hence, the objective of this study was to test the existence of sign epistasis and examine its consequences to wheat breeding. The presence of sign epistasis is expected to distort the allele frequency distribution between 2 interacting genes compared to neutral sites, creating strong linkage disequilibrium (LD). To test this hypothesis, an analysis of interchromosomal LD in breed

SUBMITTER: Tessele A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12774603 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature