Dataset Information

I am all ears: Maximize maize doubled haploid success by promoting axillary branch elongation.

ABSTRACT: The maize doubled haploid (DH) technology plays an important role in accelerating breeding genetic gain. One major challenge in fully leveraging the potential of DH technology to accelerate genetic gain is obtaining a consistent seed return from haploid (DH0) plants after chromosome doubling. Here we demonstrated that DH0 seed production can be increased by increasing the number of mature axillary female inflorescences (ears) at anthesis. To determine the maximum capacity of a maize plant to develop ears, we first characterized the developmental progression of every axillary meristem. We found that all axillary meristems developed to a similar developmental stage before the reproductive transition of the shoot apical meristem (SAM). Upon reproductive transition of the SAM, all axillary meristems are released for reproductive development into ears in a developmental gradient reflective on their positions along the main stem. However, under most circumstances only the top one or two ears can generate silks at anthesis. We found that applying the GA inhibitor paclobutrazol (PAC) during the early reproductive transition of axillary meristems increased the number of silking ears at anthesis, leading to increased success of self-pollination and seed production. These results provide a blueprint to improve DH efficiency and demonstrate the potential of breeding innovation through understanding crops' developmental processes.

SUBMITTER: Wu MF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7227119 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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I am all ears: Maximize maize doubled haploid success by promoting axillary branch elongation.

Wu Miin-Feng MF Goldshmidt Alexander A Ovadya Daniel D Larue Huachun H

Plant direct 20200515 5

The maize doubled haploid (DH) technology plays an important role in accelerating breeding genetic gain. One major challenge in fully leveraging the potential of DH technology to accelerate genetic gain is obtaining a consistent seed return from haploid (DH0) plants after chromosome doubling. Here we demonstrated that DH0 seed production can be increased by increasing the number of mature axillary female inflorescences (ears) at anthesis. To determine the maximum capacity of a maize plant to dev ...[more]

PMID: 32426692

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Project description:BackgroundDoubled haploidy is a fundamental tool in plant breeding as it provides the fastest way to generate populations of meiotic recombinants in a genetically fixed state. A wide range of methods has been developed to produce doubled haploid (DH) plants and recent advances promise efficient DH production in otherwise recalcitrant species. Since the cellular origin of the plants produced is not always certain, rapid screening techniques are needed to validate that the produced individuals are indeed homozygous and genetically distinct from each other. Ideal methods are easily implemented across species and in crops where whole genome sequence and marker resources are limited.ResultsWe have adapted enzymatic mismatch cleavage techniques commonly used for TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes) for the evaluation of heterozygosity in parental, F1 and putative DH plants. We used barley as a model crop and tested 26 amplicons previously developed for TILLING. Experiments were performed using self-extracted single-strand-specific nuclease and standard native agarose gels. Eleven of the twenty-six tested primers allowed unambiguous assignment of heterozygosity in material from F1 crosses and loss of heterozygosity in the DH plants. Through parallel testing of previously developed Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers, we show that 3/32 SSR markers were suitable for screening. This suggests that enzymatic mismatch cleavage approaches can be more efficient than SSR based screening, even in species with well-developed markers.ConclusionsEnzymatic mismatch cleavage has been applied for mutation discovery in many plant species, including those with little or no available genomic DNA sequence information. Here, we show that the same methods provide an efficient system to screen for the production of DH material without the need of specialized equipment. This gene target based approach further allows discovery of novel nucleotide polymorphisms in candidate genes in the parental lines.

Dataset Information

I am all ears: Maximize maize doubled haploid success by promoting axillary branch elongation.

Publications

I am all ears: Maximize maize doubled haploid success by promoting axillary branch elongation.

Similar Datasets

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