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Recombinant near-isogenic lines: a resource for the mendelization of heterotic QTL in maize

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Abstract

Although heterosis is widely exploited in agriculture, a clear understanding of its genetic bases is still elusive. This work describes the development of maize recombinant near-isogenic lines (NILs) for the mendelization of six heterotic QTL previously identified based on a maize (Zea mays L.) RIL population. The efficient and inexpensive strategy adopted to generate sets of NILs starting from QTL-specific residual heterozygous lines (RHLs) is described and validated. In particular, we produced nine pairs of recombinant NILs for all six QTL starting from RHLs F4:5 originally obtained during the production of the RIL population mentioned above. Whenever possible, two different NIL pairs were generated for each QTL. The efficiency of this procedure was tested by analyzing two segregating populations for two of the selected heterotic QTL for plant height, yield per plant and ears per plant. Both additive and dominant effects were observed, consistently with the presence of the QTL within the introgressed regions. Refinement of QTL detection was consistent with previous observations in terms of effects and position of the considered QTL. The genetic material developed in this work represents the starting point for QTL fine mapping aimed at understanding the genetic bases of hybrid vigor in maize.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR), the Programmi di Ricerca Scientifica di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) projects entitled “A Molecular and Quantitative Analysis of Heterosis in Maize’’ (2003) and “Sequence variability and heterosis in crop species” (2005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Milan, via Celoria 26, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Giorgio Pea & Mario Enrico Pè

  2. Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libertà 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy

    Giorgio Pea, Paulinesandra Paulstephenraj, Maria Luisa Savo Sardaro & Mario Enrico Pè

  3. Department of Agroenvironmental Sciences and Technologies “DiSTA”, University of Bologna, via Fanin 44, 40127, Bologna, Italy

    Maria Angela Canè, Pierangelo Landi & Elisabetta Frascaroli

  4. Institute of Applied Genomics, Science and Technology Park “Luigi Danieli”, via Linussio 51, 33100, Udine, Italy

    Michele Morgante

  5. Department of Agrobiology and Agrochemistry, University of Tuscia, Via De Lellis, 01100, Viterbo, Italy

    Enrico Porceddu

Authors
  1. Giorgio Pea
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  2. Paulinesandra Paulstephenraj
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  3. Maria Angela Canè
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  4. Maria Luisa Savo Sardaro
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  5. Pierangelo Landi
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  6. Michele Morgante
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  7. Enrico Porceddu
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  8. Mario Enrico Pè
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  9. Elisabetta Frascaroli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giorgio Pea.

Additional information

Communicated by M. Yano.

Electronic supplementary material

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438_2008_422_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Figure S1. Linkage map used for refinement of QTL detection. Cumulative distances are reported in cM (Kosambi mapping function) (PDF 16 kb)

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Pea, G., Paulstephenraj, P., Canè, M.A. et al. Recombinant near-isogenic lines: a resource for the mendelization of heterotic QTL in maize. Mol Genet Genomics 281, 447–457 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-008-0422-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-008-0422-6

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