Grass pea association analysis of bioactive compounds for quality precision breeding tools development

Abstract

Consumers worldwide are increasingly concerned with food quality and environmental sustainability. Grass pea (Lathyrus sativusL.) is a robust grain legume with high nutritional value. This environmentally friendly legume may be an excellent response to consumers’ concerns. However, a reduced breeding investment has hampered its use in Europe. To increase grass pea consumption and cultivation, breeding objectives and consumer preferences should be aligned. However, breeding for improved end-user ́s quality is a complex task in legumes due to high trait interaction. Particular grass pea metabolites might act as health-promoting agents as well as antinutrients, influencing both taste and consumers’ acceptability, and interfering with plant resistance to different stresses. Under the scope of LEGATO EU project, we studied the genetic basis of several of these dual-action bioactive compounds as a first step to develop molecular tools (functional markers) for redirecting breeding towards more attractive grass pea varieties. For attaining this, seed metabolites contents (such as phenolic compounds or β-ODAP) of a worldwide collection of 116 grass pea accessions were analyzed by HPLC and HPLC-MS/MS (liquid chromatography tandem -mass spectrometry). A genome-wide association study using the phenotypic information from one to two years of field experiments, combined with the genotypic information from a DArTseq based-SNP screening is currently ongoing. Relevant sources of these bioactive compounds will be detected and marker-trait associations tested using a mixed linear model that accounts for population structure and familial relatedness. Results obtained from this analysis will be reported.