Exploiting the potential of Global Durum Panel for plant and human health

Empirical and modern breeding of durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. ssp. durum (Desf.) Husn.) for creating new high-yielding varieties caused a genetic erosion of the cultivated germplasm. A recent effort to overcome this effect is the constitution of the Global Durum Panel (GDP), a shared collection of 1011 genotypes, including modern germplasm, landraces and few emmer and primitive tetraploid wheats, all genotyped with the Illumina 90k wheat array. We selected a subset of 215 genotypes, that is being exploited to address two durum wheat-related topics. The first topic is related to the wheat disease caused by the soil-borne cereal mosaic virus (SBCMV). The 215 genotypes have been grown in greenhouse on a SBCMV-infected soil. The infection evaluation through visual scoring of symptoms and qPCR is in progress. These data will be used for genome wide association studies (GWAS) to identify genetic determinants of resistance to SBCMV. The second topic is related to human health. Acrylamide has been detected in many foods after high temperature processing. In wheat derivatives, the quantity of free asparagine (fAsn) is the key factor in acrylamide formation. Exploring natural variation for fAsn content in wheat seeds allows to identify candidate genes controlling this trait. To this purpose, the 215 genotypes were sown in field for three years and the quantification of fAsn levels in whole-grain samples is in progress. A preliminary multi-locus GWAS was performed on data related to the first two years, and SNPs associated with grain fAsn content were found. This work is supported by Regione Lombardia, dds n. 4403 28/03/2018, grant n° 42 - SURF, and by the European Regional Development Fund under the ROP of the Lombardy Region ERDF 2014-2020--Axis I-Action 1.b.1.3-Call Hub, project "SPATIALS3".