Genetic properties of the maize nested association mapping population.

Maize genetic diversity has been used to understand the molecular basis of phenotypic variation and to improve agricultural efficiency and sustainability. We crossed 25 diverse inbred maize lines to the B73 reference line, capturing a total of 136,000 recombination events. Variation for recombination frequencies was observed among families, influenced by local (cis) genetic variation.

Biochemical and molecular characterization of photosystem I deficiency in the NCS6 mitochondrial mutant of maize.

Interorganellar signaling interactions are poorly understood. The maize non-chromosomal stripe (NCS) mutants provide models to study the requirement of mitochondrial function for chloroplast biogenesis and photosynthesis. Previous work suggested that the NCS6 mitochondrial mutation, a cytochrome oxidase subunit 2 (cox2) deletion, is associated with a malfunction of Photosystem I (PSI) in defective chloroplasts of mutant leaf sectors (Gu et al.

Structure of linkage disequilibrium in plants.

Future advances in plant genomics will make it possible to scan a genome for polymorphisms associated with qualitative and quantitative traits. Before this potential can be realized, we must understand the nature of linkage disequilibrium (LD) within a genome. LD, the nonrandom association of alleles at different loci, plays an integral role in association mapping, and determines the resolution of an association study.

Plant molecular diversity and applications to genomics.

Surveys of nucleotide diversity are beginning to show how genomes have been shaped by evolution. Nucleotide diversity is also being used to discover the function of genes through the mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL) in structured populations, the positional cloning of strong QTL, and association mapping.