Population Structure Analysis and Association Mapping for Turcicum Leaf Blight Resistance in Tropical Maize Using SSR Markers.

Maize is an important cereal crop in the world for feed, food, fodder, and raw materials of industries. Turcicum leaf blight (TLB) is a major foliar disease that can cause more than 50% yield losses in maize. Considering this, the molecular diversity, population structure, and genome-wide association study (GWAS) for TLB resistance were studied in 288 diverse inbred lines genotyped using 89 polymorphic simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers. These lines werescreened for TLB disease at two hot-spot locations under artificially inoculated conditions. The average percent disease incidence (PDI) calculated for each genotype ranged from 17 (UMI 1201) to 78% (IML 12-22) with an overall mean of 40%. The numbers of alleles detected at a locus ranged from twoto nine, with a total of 388 alleles. The polymorphic information content (PIC) of each marker ranged between 0.04 and 0.86. Out of 89 markers, 47 markers were highly polymorphic (PIC ≥ 0.60). This indicated that the SSR markers used were very informative and suitable for genetic diversity, population structure, and marker-trait association studies.The overall observed homozygosity for highly polymorphic markers was 0.98, which indicated that lines used were genetically pure. Neighbor-joining clustering, factorial analysis, and population structure studies clustered the 288 lines into 3-5 groups. The patterns of grouping were in agreement with the origin and pedigree records of the genotypesto a greater extent.A total of 94.10% lines were successfully assigned to one or another group at a membership probability of ≥0.60. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed highly significant differences among populations and within individuals. Linkage disequilibrium for r