Introducon Rice (Oryza sativa L.), the principal cereal crop, requires more nitrogen (N) than any other crop of the world. As a plant nutrient element, availability of N is naturally limited in the soil due to its high mobility and volatility. Therefore, intervention through fertilization is essential in agriculture to maintain the soil N status. Although under- use of N can jeopardize crop production, excess use can end up in environmental degradation. Owing to several factors, exogenous and endogenous, plants are unable to utilize applied N efficiently. The exogenous factors include soil denitrification and rapid N loss through leaching, volatilization, and run-off. The average level of N use efficiency among the field crops is about 33% (Abrol et al. 1999), with crop utilization ranging between 30 - 40 % of the applied N (Raun and Johnson 1999). A sizeable portion of the unutilized N is lost into the environment and becomes unavailable to the plants (Abrol 1 et al. 2007). A sustainable solution for this impasse is to develop nitrogen-efficient varieties that can give optimum or high yield at reduced N input. The plant use of applied N in agriculture is measured in terms of the parameter, overall N use efficiency (NUE) which is the ratio of grain yield to the applied N (Pathak et al. 2008). Abstract Nitrogen (N) recognized as a critical element for plant growth plays a fundamental role in rice cultivation. The N use efficiency (NUE) hovers around 30-35% in rice, suggesting a significant loss of N from the rice fields. Improving the NUE therefore would require genetic interventions and breeding. The cultivar improvement for N uptake and utilization is required to elevate NUE to further heights. Several quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for NUE under varying conditions and genetic backgrounds have been reported in rice. Consolidation of this distributed and unorganized information is necessary to identify critical genomic regions to be used for crop improvement. Therefore, a Meta-analysis from an assembly of 506 QTLs reported from 18 different studies was performed to identify the most significant genomic regions associated with NUE in rice. A total of 12 meta-QTLs (mQTLs) related to the traits such as NUE and grain yield per plant under N deficit conditions have been identified over four rice chromosomes namely 1, 3, 4, and 8. Evaluation of these mQTLs in a set of Indian rice germplasm revealed a significant association of the meta loci with N use parameters and showed wide distribution in the germplasm. Identification of mQTLs on different chromosomes together with their respective markers will help recruit them in marker-assisted selection (MAS) to develop N use efficient genotypes. Keywords: Crop production, marker-assisted selection, meta-QTLs, nitrogen use efficiency, rice Meta-QTLs linked to nitrogen use efficiency are randomly distributed in Indian rice germplasm Rahul Kumar, K. K. Vinod*, S. Gopala Krishnan, Dinesh Kumar 1 , Shweta Mehrotra 1 , Lekshmy Sathee 2 , Ranjith K. Ellur, A. K. Singh, P. K. Bhowmick, Haritha Bollinedi, M. Nagarajan 3 and P. K. Mandal 4 Division of Genetics, 1 Division of Agronomy, 2 Division of Plant Physiology, 3 Rice Breeding and Genetics Research Centre, ICAR- Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India; 4 ICAR-National Institute of Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi 110012, India Corresponding Author: K. K. Vinod, Division of Genetics, ICAR- Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India, E-Mail: kkvinodh@gmail.com How to cite this article: Kumar R., Vinod K. K., Krishnan S. G., Kumar D., Mehrotra S., Sathee L., Ellur R. K., Singh A. K., Bhowmick P. K., Bollinedi H., Nagarajan M., Mandal P. K. 2022. Meta-QTLs linked to nitrogen use efficiency are randomly distributed in Indian rice germplasm. Indian J. Genet. Plant Breed., 82(1): 7-15. Source of support: Nil Conflict of interest: None. Received: Nov. 2021 Revised: Jan. 2022 Accepted: Feb. 2022 NUE has two components, N uptake efficiency (NUpE) and N utilization efficiency (NUtE), the product of which gives NUE. Improving NUE is possible through breeding because the trait is genetically regulated, but the progress is slow due to the low heritability of the trait and its complex regulatory nature (Gallais and Hirel 2004). Quantitative © ISGPB 2022. This article is Published by the Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding, NASC Complex, IARI P.O., Pusa Campus, New Delhi 110 012; www.isgpb.org RESEARCH ARTICLE Indian J. Genet. Plant Breed., (2022) 82(1): 7-15 www.isgpg.org ISSN: 0975-6906 doi: 10.31742/IJGPB.82.1.2