2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea L., 2n=2x=12) is an amazing vegetable crop due to its high concentrations of nutrients and mineral components. There is a growing interest in the mineral content of foods and diets. A total of 14 mineral components: boron (B), calcium (Ca), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), sodium (Na), Nickel (Ni), phosphorus (P), Sulfur (S), and zinc (Zn) were evaluated in 292 USDA-GRIN spinach germplasm accessions, originally collected from 29 countries. The 14 mineral components were extracted from fresh leaves and measured by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. A total of 2,402 SNPs identified from genotyping by sequencing (GBS) were used as the genotypic data. STRUCTURE 2 and MEGA 6 were used for population structure and genetic diversity analysis. Single marker regression (SMR), the regression linear model (GLM), and the mixed linear model (MLM) methods as described in TASSEL 5 were used for association analysis of the SNPs and the 14 mineral components. Four structured populations were found in the 192 cowpea accessions and SNP markers were identified to be associated with the 14 mineral compounds. The four mineral components, Co, Mn, S, and Zn were correlated each other with high r value greater than 0.7 and three SNP markers, AYZV02017731_40, AYZV02094133_57, and AYZV02281036_185 were identified to be strongly associated with the four components. The SNP markers for the 14 mineral components from this study will provide a tool for breeders to select mineral components in spinach breeding programs.