Genetic insights into non-additive effects in tetraploid potato breeding
摘要
Despite the continuous growth of the global potato yield over the last 60 years, it still falls significantly short of its potential. Achieving this potential requires an efficient framework to dissect genotypic effects into additive and non-additive genetic components, enabling accurate selection of parents and clones in the early stages of potato breeding. The objective of this study was to investigate the implications of integrating additive and non-additive genetic effects into a mixed linear model, with an emphasis on genotypic variance partitioning and the estimation of selective accuracy for parents and clones in early stages of tetraploid potato breeding. A total of 1008 clones from 43 full-sib families were evaluated for total tuber yield (TTY) and specific gravity (SG) in seven trials. Five models were compared to assess the importance of non-additive effects: a base model (M1), a mixed linear model with and without additive × additive epistatic effects (M2pE and M2wE), and a mixed linear model including non-additive genetic effects with and without additive × additive epistatic effects (M3pE and M3wE). The M3wE and M2wE models provided the best fit for TTY and SG, respectively. These results suggest that non-additive gene effects were crucial in determining TTY, whereas gene action for SG was predominantly additive. Thus, the proposed approach estimates breeding values and total genotypic values at no additional cost, while facilitating the study of inheritance for complex traits and simultaneous selection of parents and clones in early stages of potato breeding.