Scientists identified 93 genetic regions controlling how modern corn diverged from its wild ancestor teosinte over thousands of years of domestication, and pinpointed one key gene — EL3-2 — that acts as a master switch influencing many traits at once, including ear length.
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93 additive genetic regions (QTLs) and 9 pairs of interacting genes were identified controlling 20 agronomic traits across the maize-teosinte divide.
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The gene EL3-2, encoding a ULTRAPETALA transcriptional regulator, is a pleiotropic domestication regulator affecting ear length and multiple other traits across developmental stages.
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Selection analysis confirmed that domestication, crop improvement, and wild introgression each targeted overlapping but distinct genomic regions, with correlated traits sharing common genetic loci.
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