A Novel Banana Mutant "RF 1" (Musa spp. ABB, Pisang Awak Subgroup) for Improved Agronomic Traits and Enhanced Cold Tolerance and Disease Resistance.

Xiaoyi Wang,Fei Liu,Liangcai Peng,Yanting Wang,Jingyang Li,Fei Lin,Yujia Li,Jiashui Wang,Yi Xu,Qing Wei,Deyong Gong,Anbang Wang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.730718

Abstract

Banana is a major fruit crop grown in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. Among cultivars, “FenJiao, FJ” (Musa spp. ABB, Pisang Awak subgroup) is a popular variety of bananas, due to its better sugar-acid blend and relatively small fruit shape. However, because the traditional FJ variety grows relatively high in height, it is vulnerable to lodging and unsuitable for harvesting. In this study, we sought desirable banana mutants by carrying out ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis with the FJ cultivar. After the FJ shoot tips had been treated with 0.8% (v/v) EMS for 4 h, we obtained a stably inherited mutant, here called “ReFen 1” (RF1), and also observed a semi-dwarfing phenotype. Compared with the wild type (FJ), this RF1 mutant featured consistently improved agronomic traits during 5-year field experiments conducted in three distinct locations in China. Notably, the RF1 plants showed significantly enhanced cold tolerance and Sigatoka disease resistance, mainly due to a substantially increased soluble content of sugar and greater starch accumulation along with reduced cellulose deposition. Therefore, this study not only demonstrated how a powerful genetic strategy can be used in fruit crop breeding but also provided insight into the identification of novel genes for agronomic trait improvement in bananas and beyond.

Highlights

Banana is one of the most important fruits and cash crops in tropical and subtropical regions around the world
We examined whether ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) could induce lethal mutagenesis in banana shoot cultures of the local banana cultivar FJ
When the mutagen concentration was higher than 0.8% and soaked for more than 4 h, the survival rate of M1 was significantly low, at

Summary

Introduction

Banana is one of the most important fruits and cash crops in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. China is a major producer and consumer of bananas, whose harvested area and total output were 380 thousand hm and 11 million tons, respectively, in 2017. In the past few decades, mutation breeding has produced thousands of new crop varieties (Sima et al, 2017). In this respect, ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) is one of the most effective, reliable, and powerful mutagens; treating plants with EMS could destroy their nuclear DNA and randomly induce new mutations in the process of DNA repair (Greene et al, 2003; Jain, 2010). We used the local FJ variety in Hainan as parent material for EMS mutagenesis

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion