Male Sterility and Somatic Hybridization in Plant Breeding

Abstract

Plant male sterility refers to the failure in the production of fertile pollen. It occurs spontaneously in natural populations and may be caused by genes encoded in the nuclear (genic male sterility; GMS) or mitochondrial (cytoplasmic male sterility; CMS) genomes. This feature has great agronomic value for the production of hybrid seeds and has been widely used in crops, such as corn, rice, wheat, citrus, and several species of the family Solanaceae. Mitochondrial genes determining CMS have been uncovered in a wide range of plant species. The modes of action of CMS have been classified in terms of the effect they produce in the cell, which ultimately leads to a failure in the production of pollen. Male fertility can be restored by nuclear-encoded genes, termed restorer-of-fertility (Rf) factors. CMS from wild plants has been transferred to species of agronomic interest through somatic hybridization. Somatic hybrids have also been produced to generate CMS de novo upon recombination of the mitochondrial genomes of two parental plants or by separating the CMS cytoplasm from the nuclear Rf alleles

Male sterility and hybrid breeding in soybean

“…The CMS/Rf system has been exploited for hybrid seed production in plenty of crops such as maize, rice, wheat, rape, soybean, sorghum, carrot, sugar beet, sunflower, cotton, pepper, and petunia (Garcia, et al 2019 ). Although this system has been successfully applied to soybean, the yield increase is still far away from that of rice and maize.…”

Male sterility and hybrid breeding in soybean

“…The CMS/Rf system has been exploited for hybrid seed production in plenty of crops such as maize, rice, wheat, rape, soybean, sorghum, carrot, sugar beet, sun ower, cotton, pepper and petunia (Garcia, et al 2019). Although this system has already been applied in soybean successfully, the yield increasing was far away from that of rice and maize.…”

“…In the case of EGMS, male fertility is often impressionable to different environmental conditions, including photoperiod (PGMS), temperature (TGMS), photoperiod and temperature (PTGMS), and humidity (HGMS) (Chen and Liu 2014; Xue, et al 2018;Abbas, et al 2021). EGMS is regarded as an e cient genetic tool to develop two-line hybrids, since the need of a maintainer line can be eliminated, and the male sterile line can be propagated by self-pollination under speci c conditions (Garcia, et al 2019). In this system, almost every conventional inbred line can restore the fertility of male-sterile line, and no negative effects related to sterility-inducing cytoplasm have been observed.…”

Induction of Male Sterility: A Boon for Plant Breeding

“…Based on the amount of genetic material contributed by the two parents involved in the somatic hybridization process recombination of genetic material of the two mitochondria can be used for the development of CMS either by symmetric or asymmetric fusion of protoplast (Garcia et al, 2019). Very recently Chen et al, (2020) developed CMS line in a cash crop, tobacco (Nta(gla)S) by asymmetric somatic hybridization between protoplasts of K326 and N. glauca followed by backcrossing with K326.…”