Male Sterility Technologies to Boost Heterosis Breeding in Pearl Millet

Abstract

AbstractA thriving pliability towards drought, low soil fertility, high salinity and high temperatures brands pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L)) as an imperative cereal crop in the semi-arid zones of the biosphere, which demands significant contribution of researchers towards its hybrid breeding programmes owing to demonstration of marked heterosis both in seed yield and forage production of hybrids. Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS), a more prominent genetic approach for F1 hybrid seed production enabling the development of effective systems for hybrid seed production by providing a sizeable amount of hybrid varieties to contemporary food production systems, remains a gifted approach to sustain improved productivity in pearl millet. Moreover, intuitive modern approaches are the need of the time likewise, a need of proper mapping of factors responsible for male sterility and fertility restoration in pearl millet ensuring the discovery of novel orfs as well as the development of DNA markers armoury ensure hybrid genetic purity, fast recovery of desirable candidate genes. This invites researchers not only to identification of male sterility-inducing factors and fertility-restorer factor but also to conduct deep innovation in molecular breeding of male sterility in pearl millet. Further, by using modern transcriptomic and proteomic tools in analysis of CMS or fertility restoration mechanisms in pearl millet, hybrid breeding can be oversimplified in terms of time and cost-effectiveness owing to fast incitement of DNA sequencing technology which provides a huge dataset of factors responsible of these plant attributes.KeywordsCytoplasmFertility restorationGenomeHeterosisHybridMale sterilityPollen