Bivariate genomic analysis identifies a hidden locus associated with bacteria hypersensitive response in Arabidopsis thaliana

Multi-phenotype analysis has drawn increasing attention to high-throughput genomic studies, whereas only a few applications have justified the use of multivariate techniques. We applied a recently developed multi-trait analysis method on a small set of bacteria hypersensitive response phenotypes and identified a single novel locus missed by conventional single-trait genome-wide association studies. The detected locus harbors a minor allele that elevates the risk of leaf collapse response to the injection of avrRpm1-modified Pseudomonas syringae (P = 1.66e-08). Candidate gene AT3G32930 with in the detected region and its co-expressed genes showed significantly reduced expression after P. syringae interference. Our results again emphasize that multi-trait analysis should not be neglected in association studies, as the power of specific multi-trait genotype-phenotype maps might only be tractable when jointly considering multiple phenotypes.