Volatilome–Genome-Wide Association Study on Wholemeal Maize Flour

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.0c01273
• Publication Date: 2020-06-23T06:51:10Z
• Authors: Mara Lisa Alves; Andreia Bento-Silva; Daniel Gaspar; Manuel Paulo; Cláudia Brites; Pedro Mendes-Moreira; Maria do Rosário ...; Marcos Malosetti; Fred van Eeuwijk; Maria Carlota Vaz...
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; Volatile Organic Compounds; 0303 health sciences; Flour; Genomics; Zea mays; 03 medical and health sciences; volatiles; Zea mays L.; Portuguese maize germplasm; Odorants; aldehydes; candidate genes; Genome, Plant; Genome-Wide Association Study; Plant Proteins

Odor and aroma, resulting from the perception of volatiles by the olfactory receptors, are important in consumer food acceptance. To develop more efficient molecular breeding tools to improve the odor/aroma on maize (Zea mays L.), a staple food crop, increasing the knowledge on the genetic basis of maize volatilome is needed. In this work, we conducted a genome-wide association study on a unique germplasm collection to identify genomic regions controlling maize wholemeal flour's volatilome. We identified 64 regions on the maize genome and candidate genes controlling the levels of 15 volatiles, mainly aldehydes. As an example, the Zm00001d033623 gene was within a region associated with 2-octenal (E) and 2-nonenal (E), two byproducts of linoleic acid oxidation. This gene codes for linoleate 9S-lipoxygenase, an enzyme responsible for oxidizing linoleic acid. This knowledge can now support the development of molecular tools to increase the selection efficacy/efficiency of these volatiles within maize breeding programs.