A genetic linkage map of nonheading Chinese cabbage

Abstract

Brassica rapa L. ssp. chinensis (L.) Hanelt, known as nonheading chinese cabbage in China, is an important vegetable in eastern Asia and its genetic improvement requires a genetic linkage map. The first genetic linkage map of nonheading chinese cabbage using 112 doubled haploid lines derived from a released F1 hybrid cultivar Shulü between two lines SW-3 and Su-124 was constructed in this paper. One hundred thirty-eight molecular markers were mapped into 14 linkage groups. Among these markers, there were 77 sequence-related amplified polymorphism markers, 27 simple sequence repeat markers, 21 random amplification polymorphic DNA markers, and 13 intersimple sequence repeat markers. Chi-square tests showed that 54 markers are distorted from Mendelian segregation ratios, and the direction of the distortion is mainly toward the maternal parent SW-3. The distortion affects not only the estimation of genetic distance, but also the order of distorted markers on a same linkage group. Given a specific marker order, the authors proposed a multipoint approach to correct the linkage map in an unbiased manner in an F2 population while considering distorted, dominant, and missing markers. A new method was used to correct the linkage map in the doubled haploid population mentioned earlier considering new, distorted, and missing markers. The total length of the corrected linkage map was 1923.75 cM, with an average marker spacing of 15.52 cM. The map will facilitate selective breeding and mapping of quantitative trait loci.