Allele Mining of a Drought Tolerance Candidate Gene Dhn 2 and Association Analysis Between Dhn 2 and Some Phenotypic Traits on Maize.

A maize association mapping population including 95 maize inbred lines was used for evaluating se-quence diversity and linkage disequilibrium of dhn2,a candidate gene encoding dehydrin protein for drought tolerance in the study.Phenotypes related to drought tolerance were also characterized.A number of alleles of dhn2 were dis-covered.Association analysis of dhn2 polymorphism and drought tolerance related phenotypes showed that the encod-ing regions of the gene had high nucleotide diversity and lowlevel LD.Additionally,seven significant associations be-tween polymorphism of dhn2 and some phenotypic traits were identified.