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. 2021 May 18;12(5):762.
doi: 10.3390/genes12050762.

Improvement of a Yairipok Chujak Maize Landrace from North Eastern Himalayan Region for β-Carotene Content through Molecular Marker-Assisted Backcross Breeding

Maqbool Qutub  1 , Sarankumar Chandran  2 , Krishnakumar Rathinavel  1 , Vellaikumar Sampathrajan  3 , Ravikesavan Rajasekaran  4 , Sudha Manickam  1 , Karthikeyan Adhimoolam  3 , Samuel Jeberson Muniyandi  5 , Senthil Natesan  2
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Improvement of a Yairipok Chujak Maize Landrace from North Eastern Himalayan Region for β-Carotene Content through Molecular Marker-Assisted Backcross Breeding

Maqbool Qutub et al. Genes (Basel). .

Abstract

In the North Eastern Himalayan region (NEHR) of India, maize is an important food crop. The local people cultivate the maize landraces and consume them as food. However, these landraces are deficient in β-carotene content. Thus, we aimed to incorporate the crtRB1 gene from UMI285β+ into the genetic background of the NEHR maize landrace, Yairipok Chujak (CAUM66), and thereby enhance the β-carotene content through marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC). In this regard, we backcrossed and screened BC1F1 and BC2F1 plants possessing the heterozygous allele for crtRB1 and then screened with 106 polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The plants having maximum recurrent parent genome recovery (RPGR) were selected in each generation and selfed to produce BC2F2 seeds. In the BC2F2 generation, four plants (CAUM66-54-9-12-2, CAUM66-54-9-12-11, CAUM66-54-9-12-13, and CAUM66-54-9-12-24) having homozygous crtRB1-favorable allele with maximum RPGR (86.74-90.16%) were selected and advanced to BC2F3. The four selected plants were selfed to produce BC2F3 and then evaluated for agronomic traits and β-carotene content. The agronomic performance of the four lines was similar (78.83-99.44%) to that of the recurrent parent, and β-carotene content (7.541-8.711 μg/g) was on par with the donor parent. Our study is the first to improve the β-carotene content in NEHR maize landrace through MABC. The newly developed lines could serve as potential resources to further develop nutrition-rich maize lines and could provide genetic stock for use in breeding programs.

Keywords: CAUM66 (Yairipok Chujak); MABC; North Eastern Himalayan region; crtRB1.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Scheme of marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABC) to improve the β-carotene content in CAUM66.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Genotyping in the backcross and selfed population of CAUM66 × UMI285β+. M, Ladder (100 bp); DP, donor parent; RP, recurrent parent. (A) Foreground screening; 1–10, segregating progenies. (B) Background screening: 1, CAUM66-54-9-12-2; 2, CAUM66-54-9-12-11; 3, CAUM66-54-9-12-13; 4, CAUM66-54-9-12-24.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Morphological resemblance of the parents and progenies. (A) CAUM66; (B) CAUM-54-9-12-24; (C) CAUM-54-9-12-13; (D) UMI285β+.
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