PAG-I Plant Genome I Conference

Town & Country Conference Center, San Diego, CA, November, 1992.


PG-I: 43pg1

RFLP ANALYSIS OF DELETIONS PRODUCED BY MAIZE PLANTS THAT CONTAIN THE r-X1 DEFICIENCY.

David Weber, Tim Helentjaris, and Zuo-Yu Zhao, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61761 and Dept. of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721.


Maize monosomics and trisomics are recoverable from female gametes that contain the r-XI deficiency because nondisjunction frequently takes place in these gametes during the second embryo sac division. Deficiencies for chromosomal segments are also recoverable from these gametes. Eighty progeny of r-X1-containing female gametes that had characteristics indicating that they might contain a deficiency were analyzed with RFLP markers on each of the 20 chromosome arms of maize. One deficiency was detected in each of 38 of these plants and two deficiencies were detected in five. These 48 deficiencies involved 13 chromosome arms (lS, 1L, 2S, 2L, 5L, 6S, 6L, 7L, 8S, 8L, 9S, 9L, and 10L); thus, the r-X1 system breaks most, probably all maize chromosome arms. Maternal chromosomal segments were lost in 38, paternal segments were lost in eight, and maternal and paternal segments of the same chromosome were lost in two of the deficiencies. Breaks were detected at five different points in chromosome 1 and four in chromosome 6; therefore, the r-X1 system causes breaks at several different points in a chromosome. We estimate that at least 2.6% of the progeny of r-XI-containing gametes contain a deficiency.


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