Molecular Breeding

, Volume 34, Issue 2, pp 739–748 | Cite as

Transferring a major QTL for oil content using marker-assisted backcrossing into an elite hybrid to increase the oil content in maize

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Abstract

Maize oil is highly valued as a human vegetable oil and in animal feed. The normal hybrid, Zhengdan958, is one of the most widely distributed varieties in China. To increase its oil content, a favorable allele of a major quantitative trait locus for oil content, qHO6 on chromosome 6 from the high-oil inbred line, By804, was transferred into the two parents of Zhengdan958, Zheng58, and Chang7-2, using marker-assisted backcrossing. Two improved inbred lines, Zheng58-qHO6 and Chang7-2-qHO6, were developed through six generations of backcrosses guided by molecular markers. An approximately 260-kb fragment from the donor parent was transferred into recurrent lines, and over 99 % of recurrent genomes were recovered. Both of the improved inbred lines showed increased oil content of roughly 1 % without a change in grain weight. Consequently, the oil content in improved Zhengdan958-qHO6, crossed from Zheng58-qHO6 to Chang7-2-qHO6, reached 4.5 %, with increases in absolute and relative content of 0.71 and 18 %, respectively, compared with the original Zhengdan958. The grain yield of the improved Zhengdan958-qHO6 ranged from 5,928 to 11,826 kg/ha in ten environments, similar to the original Zhengdan958. This study provides a practical example of the feasibility of improving quantitative traits by transferring desirable alleles using marker-assisted backcrossing.

Keywords

Maize Oil content QTL Marker-assisted backcrossing Zhengdan958 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We greatly appreciate the helpful comments on the manuscript from two anonymous reviewers. Financial support was provided by the Chinese High Technology Project (2012AA101104) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31361140362).

Supplementary material

11032_2014_71_MOESM1_ESM.doc (245 kb)
Supplementary material 1 (DOC 245 kb)

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.National Maize Improvement Center of China, Beijing Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic ImprovementChina Agricultural UniversityBeijingChina

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