Data from: Genetic dissection of a genomic region with pleiotropic effects on domestication traits in maize reveals multiple linked QTL

The domesticated crop maize and its wild progenitor, teosinte, have been
used in numerous experiments to investigate the nature of divergent
morphologies. This study examines a poorly understood region on the fifth
chromosome of maize associated with a number of traits under selection
during domestication using a QTL mapping population specific to the fifth
chromosome. In contrast with other major domestication loci in maize where
large effect, highly pleiotropic, single genes are responsible for
phenotypic effects, our study found the region on chromosome five
fractionates into multiple QTL regions, none with singularly large
effects. The smallest 1.5 LOD support interval for a QTL contained 54
genes, one of which was a MADS MIKCC transcription factor, a family of
proteins implicated in many developmental programs. We also used simulated
trait datasets to investigate the power of our mapping population to
identify QTL for which there is a single underlying causal gene. This
analysis showed that while QTL for traits controlled by single genes can
be accurately mapped, our population design can detect no more than ~4.5
QTL per trait even when there are 100 causal genes. Thus when a trait is
controlled by 5 or more genes in the simulated data, the number of
detected QTL can represent a simplification of the underlying causative
factors. Our results show how a QTL region with effects on several
domestication traits may be due to multiple linked QTL of small effect as
opposed to a single gene with large and pleiotropic effects.