Author
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HU, JINGUO - UNIV CALIFORNIA DAVIS |
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Rutger, J |
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Submitted to: Society for Advancement of Breeding Researches in Asia and Oceania
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 7/1/1996 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: In this paper the "female" fertility of 23 previously identified "male" sterile mutants was studied. In 10 male steriles there was little effect on female fertility. These 10 would be more valuable for use in making hybrids than the other 13, which had varying degrees of female sterility. Technical Abstract: To determine the effect of male sterility genes on female sterility, we used the cleared-pistil technique to cytologically examine the female fertility of 23 previously-reported male-sterile mutants and two normal controls. Embryo sacs with an egg cell, synergids, polar bodies, and antipodals were scored as fertile and those without such components were scored as sterile. by this criterion, we found that ten ms genes has little effect on female fertility; these mutants showed normal or nearly normal female fertility, ranging from 91.7 to 97.8%, which were not significantly different from the two controls (95.6 and 96.6%). Thirteen ms mutants, with female fertility ranging from 18.9 to 85.4%, differed significantly from the controls. Cytologically determined female fertility was confirmed by seed set after hand pollination on these mutants. Cytological examinations on microsporogenesis revealed that abnormal pollen mother cells and irregular meiotic products such as dyads, triads, and misorientated tetrads, were frequently found among the mutants with reduced female fertility. thus female fertility seems to be associated with disturbed meiotic processes. the significance of female fertility was discussed with respect to molecular biology and breeding practice. |
