Abstract:

Zinc malnutrition has been one of most essential causes of harm to human health. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) for zinc content in rice grains is of great significance to the study of zinc-rich rice genetics and in zinc breeding programs. We used 145 F₂ lines from the cross between Fengxinhongmi and Minghui100 rice to detect QTL as sociated with zinc content with 92 simple sequence repeat markers covering the whole rice genome. A total of 3 QTL for zinc content were detected on chromosome 3, 6, and 11 and accounted for 4.97%, 12.75% and 7.74% of the phenotypic variance, respectively. Among them, QZN3 was located between RM186 and RM168 on chromosome 3 and contributed the most to phenotypic variation. The favorable alleles of QZN3 for zinc content originated from Minghui100, with partial dominant effects. The total contribution of the 3 QTL was 25.46%. This study has laid a foundation for mapping and cloning QTL and molecular-marker-assisted selection of zinc content in rice.