As one of the essential cereal crops, wheat provides 20% of the calories and proteins consumed by humans. Due to population expansion, dietary shift and climate change, it is challenging for wheat breeders to develop new varieties for meeting wheat production requirements. Marker-assisted selection (MAS) has distinct advantages over conventional selection in plant breeding, such as being time-saving, cost-effective and goal-oriented. This review makes attempts to give a description of different molecular markers: sequence tagged site (STS), simple sequence repeat (SSR), genotyping by sequencing (GBS), single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays, exome capture, Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP), cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (CAPS), semi-thermal asymmetric reverse PCR (STARP) and genotyping by target sequencing (GBTS). We also summarize some quantitative trait loci (QTL)/genes as well as their linked markers, which are potentially useful in MAS. This paper provides updated information on some markers linked to critical traits and their potential applications in wheat breeding programs.

Improving wheat yield is essential to meet the increasing demand for food production. This study aims to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with grain traits and plant height (PH) in winter wheat, using a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from a cross between Zhongke 331 and Nongda 399. The RIL population was genotyped using the 16K GenoBaits Wheat single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array. A genetic linkage map was established, comprising 14,868 SNPs and spanning 3846.91 cM, with an average interval of 1.11 cM between markers. These SNPs were categorized into 3463 SNP bin markers, with 1653, 1508, and 302 located in the A, B, and D sub-genomes, respectively. QTL analysis for thousand-grain weight (TGW), grain length (GL), grain width (GW), and PH revealed 61 QTL influencing these traits across six environments. Loci qPH-4B.1 and qPH-4D.1 were consistently detected in five environments. QTL clusters with pleiotropic effects that regulate multiple grain traits were identified on chromosomes 4B and 4D. Furthermore, the combination of qPH-4B.1 and qPH-4D.1 resulted in a reduced plant height compared to the presence of either locus alone, indicating an additive effect between these loci.