Abstract:
Floral scent is a very important trait in plant evolution. Currently, little is
known about the inheritance of floral scent in cowpea (Vigna unguiculata
L.) or changes that might have occurred during its domestication.
Therefore, we analysed scent volatiles and molecular markers in a population
of 159 F7 recombinant inbred lines derived from a cross of a
domesticated blackeye cowpea cultivar, ‘524B’ and a wild accession
‘219-01’. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) 23
volatile compounds were identified that fall into five general functional
categories. Twenty-two of the compounds displayed quantitative variation
in the progeny, and a total of 63 QTLs influencing the amounts of
these volatiles were mapped onto the cowpea genetic marker map.
Although QTLs for volatile compounds putatively involved in cowpea
flower scent were found on 9 of the 11 cowpea chromosomes, they were
not evenly distributed with QTLs mainly clustered on LGs 1, LGs 2 and
LG 4. Our results serve as a starting point for both more detailed analyses
of complex scent biosynthetic pathways and the development of
markers for marker-assisted breeding of scented rose varieties.
