Welcome to the Sorghum QTL Atlas

The mechanisms governing the genetic control of many quantitative traits are only poorly understood and have yet to be fully exploited. Over the last 2 decades around 150 QTL and GWAS studies have been published in sorghum producing an enormous amount of information concerning the genetic basis of quantitative traits including their genomic location, allelic effects and epistatic interactions. To date such QTL information has not been fully exploited by sorghum improvement programs and sorghum genetic researchers world-wide. This can be attributed in part to the heterogeneous nature of QTL studies leading to variable reliability of QTL identified from one study to the next, requiring that any attempt to project QTL locations from multiple experiments onto a single genetic or physical map must take into account factors on which the reliability of the initial QTL study depends. Using such approaches to adjust the QTL confidence interval we have collated the projected locations of ~6000 QTL or GWAS significant loci from ~150 publications in sorghum from 1995 to present, expanding upon a previous study by Mace and Jordan (2011). Thirty-five major effect genes from Mace and Jordan (2010) are also included. The genome coordinates are provided for all QTL and major effect genes on all 3 versions of the sorghum genome assembly, for the sorghum consensus map and for the syntenic locations on maize and rice. Additional background information about the Sorghum QTL Atlas.

Advances are made frequently in this rapidly evolving field and while we attempt to keep up with the literature there may sometimes be a delay between the publication of a new study and the incorporation of the data from that study into the atlas.

If you would like to alert us to your publication to ensure it is rapidly integrated into the atlas please contact us through the contact form or via email to admin@aussorgm.org.au. We can arrange for your QTLs to be uploaded to the database prior to the publication of your article.

Please cite us

How to cite the sorghum QTL Atlas:

Mace ES, Innes D, Hunt C, Wang X, Tao Y, Baxter J, Hassall M, Hathorn A, Jordan DR, 2018. The Sorghum QTL Atlas: a powerful tool for trait dissection, comparative genomics and crop improvement. Theor Appl Genet. doi: 10.1007/s00122-018-3212-5.