Genome-wide association study of leaf specialized metabolites variation within sessile oak populations.

Specialized or secondary metabolites (SMs) play a key role in plant resistance against abiotic stresses and defences against bioaggressors. Here, we explored the natural variation of SMs in nine European provenances of sessile oaks and aimed to detect its underlying genetic bases. We sampled mature leaves from high and low branches on 225 sessile oak trees located in a common garden and used untargeted metabolomics to characterise the variation of 219 specialized metabolites. In addition, we used whole genome low-depth sequencing to genotype individuals for 1.4M genetic markers. We then performed genome-wide association analyses to identify the genetic bases underlying the variation of leaf SMs.