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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Agron.
Sec. Plant-Soil Interactions
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fagro.2025.1428366

Detailed genetic analyses highlight genetic variation and genomic regions for lead tolerance in spring wheat

Provisionally accepted
Amira M. I. Mourad Amira M. I. Mourad 1*Ahmed Sallam Ahmed Sallam 1Khaled A Farghaly Khaled A Farghaly 1Andreas Börner Andreas Börner 2
  • 1 Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Assuit, Egypt
  • 2 Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Lower Saxony, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Understanding the dynamics of Pb tolerance across different growth stages is essential for breeding wheat varieties with comprehensive tolerance to Pb contamination throughout their life cycle. Lead (Pb) in soil affects wheat plants at all growth stages. However, the seedling stage is considered a sensitive growth stage for the tolerance of most abiotic stresses. Genetic variation in lead tolerance is poorly understood, and genetic control has still not been investigated. In this study, 103 highly diverse wheat genotypes were investigated under normal and lead stress conditions at the seedling stage. High genetic variation was found among all the genotypes for all the traits. High broad-sense heritability estimates ranging from 0.25-0.93 were observed. A highly significant correlation was found among all the traits scored under normal and lead stress conditions. Low or no significant phenotypic correlations were found for lead tolerance between the seedling and adult growth stages. A set of eight genotypes were classified as lead-tolerant genotypes. The GWAS was performed via two different sets of markers: 21,750 (25K Infinium iSelect array) and 37,790 SNPs (genotyping-by-sequencing). The GWAS revealed a set of 222 significant markers associated with lead tolerance. Markers with pleiotropic effects were detected under Pb stress and between lead and normal conditions. Interestingly, five significant markers were found to be associated with lead tolerance at the seedling and adult growth stages. The results of this study provide new and novel insights into genetic control and genetic variation in lead tolerance at the early growth stage. Moreover, all the genes and genotypes reported in this study will be very useful for further investigations of lead tolerance in wheat at different growth stages.

    Keywords: heavy metals, Seedling tolerance, Genome-Wide Association Study, Gene Enrichment, functional annotation, Gene network

    Received: 06 May 2024; Accepted: 14 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Mourad, Sallam, Farghaly and Börner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Amira M. I. Mourad, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Assuit, Egypt

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.