Abstract
The practical use of marker-assisted selection (MAS) is limited in conifers because of the difficulty with developing markers due to a rapid decrease in linkage disequilibrium, the limited genomic information available, and the diverse genetic backgrounds among the breeding material collections. First, in this study, two families were produced by artificial crossing between two male-sterile trees, ‘Shindai11’ and ‘Shindai12’, and a plus tree, ‘Suzu-2’ (Ms1/ms1) (S11-S and S12-S families, respectively). The segregation ratio between the male-sterile and male-fertile trees did not deviate significantly from the expected 1:1 ratio in either family. These results clearly suggested that the male-sterile gene of ‘Shindai11’ and ‘Shindai12’ is MALE STERILITY 1 (MS1). Since it is difficult to understand the relative positions of each marker, due to the lack of a linkage map which all the closely linked markers previously reported are mapped on, we constructed a partial linkage map of the region encompassing MS1 using the S11-S and S12-S families. For the S11-S and S12-S families, 19 and 18 markers were mapped onto the partial linkage maps of the MS1 region, respectively. There was collinearity (conserved gene order) between the two partial linkage maps. Two markers (CJt020762_ms1-1 and reCj19250_2335) were mapped to the same position as the MS1 locus on both maps. Of these markers, we used CJt020762 for the MAS in this study. According to the MAS results for 650 trees from six prefectures of Japan (603 trees from breeding materials and 47 trees from the Ishinomaki natural population), five trees in Niigata Prefecture and one tree in Yamagata Prefecture had heterozygous ms1-1, and three trees in Miyagi Prefecture had heterozygous ms1-2. The results obtained in this study suggested that ms1-1 and ms1-2 have different geographical distributions. Since MAS can be used effectively to reduce the labor and time required for selection of trees with a male-sterile gene, the research should help ensure that the quantity of breeding materials will increase to assist future tree-breeding efforts.
Highlights
Molecular marker-assisted selection (MAS), which can reduce the time required for a breeding cycle, is an attractive method for conifers, which have longer generation times than those of most crop species [1]
These results clearly suggested that the male-sterile gene of ‘Shindai11’
In the MAS results of this study, we found that five trees in Niigata Prefecture (‘Kashiwazakishi-1’, ‘Setsugai Niigata-6’, ‘Setsugai Murakami-2’, ‘Setsugai Aikawa-8’, and ‘Kamikiri Niigata-55’) and one tree in Yamagata Prefecture (‘Taisetsu Yamagata-8’) had heterozygous ms1-1, and three trees in Miyagi Prefecture (‘Kurihara-4’ and two trees in the natural population) had heterozygous ms1-2
Summary
Molecular marker-assisted selection (MAS), which can reduce the time required for a breeding cycle, is an attractive method for conifers, which have longer generation times than those of most crop species [1]. In conifers, the practical use of MAS is limited because it is difficult to develop markers for MAS due to a rapid decrease in linkage disequilibrium, the limited genomic information available, and the diverse genetic backgrounds among the breeding material collections. Don) is an important forestry species that occupies nearly 4.5 million hectares of planted forest in Japan, which corresponds to approximately 44% of all the planted forest area in the country [2]. The increase in area covered by planted C. japonica has triggered pollinosis
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