PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Nengyi Zhang
AU  - Yves Gibon
AU  - Nicholas Lepak
AU  - Pinghua Li
AU  - Lauren Dedow
AU  - Charles Chen
AU  - Yoon-Sup So
AU  - Jason Wallace
AU  - Karl Kremling
AU  - Peter Bradbury
AU  - Thomas Brutnell
AU  - Mark Stitt
AU  - Edward Buckler
TI  - Genome-wide association study of carbon and nitrogen metabolism in the maize nested association mapping population
AID  - 10.1101/010785
DP  - 2014 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 010785
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/10/28/010785.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/10/28/010785.full
AB  - Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) metabolism are critical to plant growth and development and at the basis of yield and adaptation. We have applied high throughput metabolite analyses to over 12,000 diverse field grown samples from the maize nested association mapping population. This allowed us to identify natural variation controlling the levels of twelve key C and N metabolites, often with single gene resolution. In addition to expected genes like invertases, critical natural variation was identified in key C4 metabolism genes like carbonic anhydrases and a malate transporter. Unlike prior maize studies, extensive pleiotropy was found for C and N metabolites. This integration of field-derived metabolite data with powerful mapping and genomics resources allows dissection of key metabolic pathways, providing avenues for future genetic improvement.