Grain yellowness is an effective predictor of carotenoid content in global sorghum populations.

Abstract

Identification of high carotenoid germplasm is crucial to assist breeders in provitamin-A biofortification of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench). High-performance liquid chromatography is the gold standard for carotenoid quantification, however, it is not feasible for large scale phenotyping due to its high cost and low throughput. In this study, we tested the feasibility of using grain color as a high-throughput method of carotenoid biofortification breeding. We hypothesized that visual, color-based selection can be an effective strategy to identify high-carotenoid accessions. Yellow grain had significantly higher carotenoid content than red, brown, and white grain. The degree of yellowness could distinguish the presence or absence of carotenoids, but could not distinguish carotenoid concentrations within yellow-only accessions. The degree of luminosity of the grain, however, was able to better predict carotenoid concentrations within yellow-only accessions. Genome-wide association studies identified significant marker-trait associations for qualitative and quantitative grain color traits and carotenoid concentrations near carotenoid pathway genes-ZEP, PDS, CYP97A, NCED, CCD, and LycE-three of which were common between grain color and carotenoid traits. These findings suggest that using grain color as a method for screening germplasm may be an effective high-throughput selection tool for prebreeding and early-stage breeding in carotenoid biofortification.

Plant phenotyping relevance

穀粒色を用いたカロテノイド含量推定・高スループット選抜法の実現可能性を検証しており、植物形質取得法が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The paper's grain-color/carotenoid phenotyping data are in public supplementary files (Supplementary Data S1–S3: GRIN color traits, visual scores, colorimeter measurements), and the authors' analysis code is publicly deposited on GitHub with an explicit availability statement.