β-glucan is an important trait to be improved in barley breeding programs, as it greatly affects the quality of the end products when barley grains are used as raw material of feed or malt production or consumed as food for human. Although the genes associated with β-glucan synthesis have been identified, genetic regulation of β-glucan accumulation in barley grains is still completely unclear. In this study, 100 accessions from International Barley Core Selected Collection (BCS) were planted in two environments for two consecutive years to determine the genotypic variation of grain β-glucan content. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified 14 stable marker-trait associations (MTAs) (−Log10(P)> 4) for grain β-glucan content. Significantly positive correlation was found between grain β-glucan content and the number of favorable alleles of 14 stable MTAs. Seven putative candidate genes encoding some enzymes in glucose metabolism were found to be associated with β-glucan content. One of the putative genes, HORVU6Hr1G088380, could be an important gene controlling barely β-glucan content, with the SNPs being closely linked in all tested accessions and divided into two haplotypes. High resolution melting (HRM) analysis of the first SNP suggested that the HRM-SNP marker is valid for marker-assisted selection in barley breeding. This study provides useful information for the genes and markers related to grain β-glucan content in barley.

β-葡聚糖是大麦育种计划中需要改进的重要性状，因为当大麦籽粒用作饲料或麦芽生产的原料或作为人类食品食用时，它极大地影响最终产品的质量。尽管与β-葡聚糖合成相关的基因已被鉴定，但大麦籽粒中β-葡聚糖积累的遗传调控仍完全不清楚。在这项研究中，来自国际大麦核心精选集（BCS）的100份材料连续两年在两种环境中种植，以确定谷物β-葡聚糖含量的基因型变异。一项全基因组关联研究 (GWAS) 确定了谷物 β-葡聚糖含量的 14 个稳定标记性状关联 (MTA) (−Log10(P)> 4)。谷物β-葡聚糖含量与14个稳定MTA的有利等位基因数量呈显着正相关。发现编码葡萄糖代谢中某些酶的七个假定候选基因与 β-葡聚糖含量相关。其中一个推定基因HORVU6Hr1G088380可能是一个几乎控制 β-葡聚糖含量的重要基因，其 SNP 在所有测试的种质中紧密相连，并分为两种单倍型。第一个 SNP 的高分辨率熔解 (HRM) 分析表明，HRM-SNP 标记对于大麦育种中的标记辅助选择是有效的。这项研究为大麦中与谷物 β-葡聚糖含量相关的基因和标记提供了有用的信息。