Jun Zhu
College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University

Most important agronomy traits are complex traits which are controlled by multiple genes with gene-gene interaction and gene-environment interaction. With recent advances in molecular genotyping and high-throughput technology, great opportunity is provided for unraveling genetic architecture of complex traits.
Quantitative trait locus (QTL) can be identified based on limited number of markers by using a linkage map derived from a mapping population. Mixed linear model approaches were developed for QTL-QTL interaction and QTL-Env interaction for pairwise QTLs. Epistasis and environment interaction for multiple QTLs in one genetic model can be unbiased estimated by MCMC method using software QTL Network. The conditional mapping approach was proposed to analyze developmental QTLs by MCIM.
Recently, we develop new approaches for mapping quantitative trait SNP (QTS) and quantitative trait transcript (QTT). Epistasis for two genes and three genes, as well as gene-environment interaction can be estimated. A new software QTL Network V3.0 is going to be released, which can be use for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems and also for GPU computation. The new methods have been used for mapping QTS and QTT for human complex diseases and also for complex traits of mouse and crops. The technology of gene selection based on QTS and QTT mapping will be proposed.