Stevia (Stevia rebuadiana Bertoni) is a perennial shrub grown for the extraction of sweet tasting, nonnutritive compounds called steviol glycosides (SGs) from the leaves, which are up to 300 times sweeter than sugar. The most abundant SGs, stevioside and rebaudioside (Reb) A, have undesirable taste characteristics that have limited their acceptance as a sugar substitute. The SGs Reb D and Reb M offer a similar sweetening intensity to Reb A, but with a superior taste profile. However, these compounds are produced in much lower concentrations than Reb A. The genetic control of SG biosynthesis is only partially understood, hampering efforts to develop new varieties producing high concentrations of desired SGs. Here we report development of a reference transcriptome from a diverse set of stevia tissues. Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were mined from the transcriptome, and a genetic linkage map for a pseudo test-cross F₁ stevia population was generated with 97 SSRs. This population exhibited transgressive segregation and high broad-sense heritability estimates for many leaf biomass yield and SG content-related traits across two field locations. Two quantitative trait loci (QTL), each explaining 14.0–16.6 % of the observed variation, were identified for Reb D concentration. Additional QTL were identified for Reb A concentration, vigor, and plant height. This study represents the first report of QTL in stevia and will aid future efforts for molecular marker development and gene discovery for economically important traits in stevia.

甜叶菊（甜叶菊rebuadianaBertoni）是一种多年生灌木，用于从叶片中提取甜味，非营养性化合物甜菊醇糖苷（SGs），其甜度高达糖的300倍。最丰富的SG，甜菊糖苷和莱鲍迪苷（Reb）A具有不良的味觉特征，限制了它们作为糖替代品的接受度。SGs Reb D和Reb M提供与Reb A类似的甜味强度，但具有出色的口感。但是，这些化合物的产生浓度远低于RebA。仅部分了解了SG生物合成的遗传控制，阻碍了开发可产生高浓度所需SG的新品种的努力。在这里，我们报告了从不同的甜叶菊组织参考转录组的发展。从转录组中提取了简单序列重复（SSR）标记，_1个甜菊种群产生了97个SSR。该种群对两个田间地点的许多叶片生物量产量和与SG含量相关的性状表现出侵略性隔离和高广义遗传力估计。确定了Reb D浓度的两个定量性状位点（QTL），每个位点解释了所观察到的变异的14.0–16.6％。确定了其他QTL的Reb A浓度，活力和株高。这项研究代表了QTL在甜叶菊中的首次报道，将有助于未来在甜叶菊中进行具有重要经济意义的分子标记开发和基因发现的研究。