Abstract
Cross-incompatibility genes known as gametophyte factors (ga) are numerous in maize. Many popcorn strains carry these genes and cannot be fertilized by pollen of dent and flint maize strains although the reciprocal crosses are successful. A Chinese popcorn strain SDGa25 carries the strongest allele of Ga1 (Ga1-S) and the majority of Chinese dent and flint maize germplasm are incompatible with SDGa25. The incompatibility is due to pollen tube growth obstruction 2 h after pollination. The pollen tube is arrested in the silk segment 5.5 cm distal to the pollination area and never reaches the ovule. The Ga1-S carried by SDGa25 behaves as a single dominant gene. This gene was mapped between markers SD3 on BAC AC200747 0.827 cM apart on the telomere side and SD12 on BAC AC204382 0.709 cM apart on the centromere side. The genetic region mapped spanning the Ga1-S locus was estimated to be 1.5 cM in length and the physical distance is 2,056,343 bp on ctg156 based on the B73 RefGen_v2 sequence. Gametophyte factors influence gene flow direction and the strongest Ga1-S allele is useful for isolating one category of commercial varieties from another. The eight tightly linked markers to Ga1-S developed in this study would greatly improve marker-assisted introgression efficiency and the fine mapping would facilitate the isolation of the Ga1-S.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank China National Science Foundation (Program No.30971788), Shandong Pivotal Elite Variety Development Project (Lu 2010-6) and the Advanced Research Program from the Institute of Genetics and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences for providing funds for carrying out the research work. The authors also thank Dr. Baoshen Liu for providing maize germplasm line SDGa25 and others used in the study.
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Communicated by H. H. Geiger.
H. Zhang and X. Liu are contributed equally to this work.
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Zhang, H., Liu, X., Zhang, Y. et al. Genetic analysis and fine mapping of the Ga1-S gene region conferring cross-incompatibility in maize. Theor Appl Genet 124, 459–465 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-011-1720-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-011-1720-7