8th INTERNATIONAL WHEAT CONFERENCE

Five pairs of epistatic effects were identified for flour protein content (Table 2; Fig. 2). These
QTL had corresponding contributions ranging from 1.51% to 5.07%. One pair of epistasis
occurring between the loci QFpc5A-1/QFpc5B had the largest effect, which contributed
flour protein content of 0.17% and accounted for 5.07% of the phenotypic variance. All
the five pairs of epistatic effects increased flour protein content, and explained 10.12% of
the phenotypic variance. All the epistatic effects were non-main-effect QTL. No QTL was
detected in AAE interaction for both grain protein content and flour protein content.
The flour protein content is lower by 0.9-1.9% than grain protein content at about the 70%
flour extraction.As flour is our staple food, flour protein content is more important than
grain protein content. Of the 15 QTL obtained in this study, three additive QTL and one
pair of epistatic QTL were identified both in grain protein and flour protein, which were
considered more ‘stable’ for protein content than those QTL detected only grain protein
or only identified for flour protein. The information could be useful for manipulating the
QTL for protein content by marker-assisted selection in wheat breeding programs.
Keywords doubled haploid (DH) • protein content • quantitative trait loci (QTL) • wheat
(Triticum aestivum L.)
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