Association Mapping of SSR Markers to Sweet, Bitter and Roasted Peanut Sensory Attributes in Cultivated Peanut.

Certain roasted peanut quality sensory attributes are very important breeding objectives for peanut manufactory and consumers. Currently the only means of measuring these traits is the use of a trained sensory panel. This is a costly and time-consuming process. It is desirable, from a cost, time and sample size perspective, to find DNA- marker and the trait association for the implementation of marker-assisted selection (MAS) in a breeding program. One hundred and four accessions of the U.S. mini core collection are used for sweet, bitter and roasted peanut sensory attributes analysis including tocopherols, fatty acids and sugars. One hundred and thirty-three SSR (Simple Sequence Repeats) markers were applied for genotyping the panel of 104 peanut genotypes. Association mapping analysis indicated that the four markers (pPGPseq5D5, GM2745, pPGSseq18G1, GM2723) are associated with sensory attributes, while five makers (GM1609, Ah32, pPGPseq2C11, XIP297, Ah3) associated with tocopherols, three makers (GM2690, GM2774, GM2791) associated with fatty acids and two markers (GM2690, GM1609) associated with sugars, respectively. These SSR markers are consistently associated with corresponding traits by four models: Q model, PCA model, Q+K model, and PCA+K model and resulting in a high R². It is noteworthy that GM1609 and GM2690 are common markers for two traits. These highly associated markers would be used for the development of flavor-desirable and nutrient-rich cultivars in peanut breeding programs after further validation of the markers.