Effect of alien cytoplasm and fertility restorer genes on agronomic and physiological traits of Brassica juncea (L.) Czern

Abstract

To assess the effect of alien cytoplasm and fertility restorer genes on agronomic and physiological traits in Brassica juncea, cytoplasmic male sterile (CMS) and fertility restorer lines involving five alloplasms in three nuclear backgrounds were constituted through repeated backcrossing. These lines were evaluated along with euplasmic lines for agronomic traits in field experiments. Respiration efficiency of in vitro cultured hypocotyls, and chlorophyll content in leaves were also estimated. Significant adverse effects of trachystoma and catholica cytoplasms on yieldcontributing traits and yield were noticed. The restorer gene corrected the floral defects in CMS trachystoma and restored yield to the level of euplasmic line, while it did so only partly in CMS catholica. Restorer genes had no adverse effect on traits in any of the systems. On the contrary, the Rf gene of moricandia CMS system exerted a positive effect on leaf chlorophyll content. Likewise, in vitro assay indicated the moricandia CMS system as vigorous. The moricandia CMS plants gave higher seed yield perhaps due to overall better vigour and higher leaf chlorophyll content.

Exploitation of Heterosis for Seed Yield and its Contributing Traits in CMS Based Hybrids of Indian Mustard [Brassica juncea (L.) Czern and Coss]

“…Fertility restorers have been identified in the Trachystoma and Moricandia based CMS lines of B. juncea (Prakash and Kirti, 1997). Among the different sterile cytoplasms, Moricandia arvensis (mori) and Diplotaxis erucoides (eru) cytoplasms are proved to be stable and with almost no adverse effects in B. juncea backgrounds (Kaur et al, 2004, Chamola et al, 2013. The mori CMS system is available in B. juncea with small non-dehiscent anthers and excellent nectarines.…”

Introgression of ‘Ogura’ cytoplasm in cabbage alters its nutritional quality and antioxidant activities

“…At Indian Agricultural Research Institute Regional Station in Katrain, also had developed Ogura based CMS lines of cabbage by inter-specific hybridization and repeated back-crossing (Parkash et al, 2018). But, introgression of alien cytoplasm in Brassica vegetables showed poor agronomic performance (Hoser-Krause, 1989), abnormal style and reduced nectaries (Dey et al, 2011), leaf chlorosis (Ren, Cao, 1990) and poor female fertility (Chamola et al, 2013). These undesirable effects are considered as a consequence of incompatibility between nuclear and cytoplasmic genes (Peletier et al, 1983).…”

Cytoplasmic male sterility in Brassicaceae crops

“…The negative effect of incompatible plastids causing leaf chlorosis in CMS B. rapa , B. juncea or B. napus lines with Ogura, B. oxyrrhina , M. arvensis cytoplasm, and chloroplast substitution as an approach to overcome this problem, have already been discussed above ( Kirti et al 1993 , 1995a ). CMS lines of B. juncea carrying Ogura, D. catholica or T. ballii cytoplasm show poor female fertility ( Chamola et al 2013b , Pathania et al 2003 ). In most cases, only those mitochondrial genes that are directly associated with male sterility have been studied.…”

“…Although the expression patterns of many other mitochondrial genes are also altered in the CMS lines, the effects of such changes and the role of Rf genes in correcting other defects have rarely been investigated. Recently, Chamola et al (2013b) compared in detail the effects of alien cytoplasms in B. juncea . In the T. balli -based CMS system, a restorer gene could completely reverse the negative effect of cytoplasm on seed yield and yield-contributing traits, whereas in D. catholica -based CMS, a restorer gene was only partially effective.…”