PubMed · 2026-06-10
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.
93 additive genetic regions (QTLs) and 9 pairs of interacting genes were identified controlling 20 agronomic traits across the maize-teosinte divide.
The gene EL3-2, encoding a ULTRAPETALA transcriptional regulator, is a pleiotropic domestication regulator affecting ear length and multiple other traits across developmental stages.
Selection analysis confirmed that domestication, crop improvement, and wild introgression each targeted overlapping but distinct genomic regions, with correlated traits sharing common genetic loci.
