Identification of parents of F1 hybrids through SSR profiling of maternal and hybrid tissue

Abstract

The ability of maternally inherited pericarp tissue to be useful as a source from which molecular marker profiles of the inbred parents can be generated was investigated, using pericarp and kernel tissue from reciprocal crosses of five maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids and their parental inbred lines. Genotypes were examined using ten SSR loci for each hybrid and their parents. SSR loci were selected that could distinguish between all parental genotypes for each hybrid. One hundred SSR profiles were generated using pericarp tissue (10 hybrids x 10 SSR loci). Ninety-four percent of amplifications from pericarp tissue resulted in the SSR profile of the female inbred parent of the hybrid. Five percent of the profiles showed both female and male contributions to the hybrid and would therefore immediately lead to suspicions that pericarp tissue was contaminated with other tissues from the kernel. One percent showed only the contribution of the male parent, possibly due to a failure of SSRs to always report all heterozygote alleles. These results show that SSR technology can be reliably used to genotype the female parent of a maize hybrid and thus to also determine the profile of the male parent from comparison of hybrid and female parent profiles.