Molecular characterization and agronomic performance of DH lines from the F1 of indica and japonica cultivars of rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Anther culture (AC)-derived doubled haploid (DH) lines from the F-1 of indica (PSB Rc10) and japonica (Nipponbare) cultivars were evaluated for different agronomic traits under field conditions. These lines were also characterized using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Significant variation was observed among the 73 DH lines for different characters namely; plant height, tiller number, panicle number, panicle length, days to heading, and % seed fertility. For all traits, the phenotypic variance within each DH line was comparable to the mean phenotypic variance of parents indicating that the plants within lines were uniform and did not exhibit plant-to-plant variation. SSR analysis of the DH population showed an expected 1:1 ratio of indica and japonica alleles. It revealed homozygosity for 99.84% of the total marker loci in the 141 lines evaluated suggesting that the AC-derived plants originated from the F-1 pollen. Heterozygosity was observed in only 10 DH lines for one or three marker loci out of 107 polymorphic SSR markers. Absence of non-parental bands in the DH lines is indicative of the purity of the DH lines and that no variation at the DNA level occurred during the in vitro process. Agronomic and molecular data support DH lines generated to be quite suitable and useful in rice breeding and many other areas of research such as genetics, genomics, QTL analysis and mapping for different agronomic traits including grain quality characteristics. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.