Studies on Genome Recovery Percentage for Opaque2 Introgressed in Backcross Population for Marker Assisted Selection of Quality Protein Maize

The present study was carried out with objectives of foreground selection of maize plants using opaque2 specific markers and analysis of genome recovery of recurrent parent in BC₂F₁ and BC₃F₁ populations using SSR markers. Two non QPM inbreds namely HKI287 and HKI1126 are the parents of a promising hybrids identified for central India were undertaken for conversion into QPM. On the basis of parental polymorphism for markers linked to o2 gene the HKI287 was crossed with HKI193 (QPM donor) and HKI1126 was crossed with HKI 161. Hybrids were tested using three Opaque2 gene specific markers namely phi057, phi112 and umc1066. Among 100 BC₁F₁ plants, 20 heterozygous plants were sown for raising BC₂F₁ generation and among 120 BC₂F₁ plants 20 heterozygous were sown for raising BC₃F₁. A total of 173 SSR markers were screened for parental polymorphism, 101 markers were found polymorphic between HKI287 and HKI193-1 while 102 markers between HKI 1126 and HKI 161. To screen both populations using all polymorphic SSR markers covering the all chromosomes for HKI1126 and HKI287 were selected. Among twenty plants of BC₂F₁ 1126 population the genome recovery percentage was ranged from 0.901–0.972 and in BC₃F₁ 1126 plants genome recovery was 0.971–0.996. Recurrent parent genome recovery was calculated among BC₂F₁ HKI287 plants. The highest genome recovery was 0.976 and lowest genome recovery was 0.891. In case of BC₃F₁ HKI287 plants genome recovery of recurrent parent can be grouped under three categorization viz. High genome recovery (0.986 – 0.993), Medium genome recovery (0.981 – 0.985) and Low genome recovery (0.968 – 0.980). The average genome recovery was found 0.983.