Enhancing β-Carotene Concentration in Parental Lines of CO6 Maize Hybrid Through Marker-Assisted Backcross Breeding (MABB)

Senthil Natesan; Thirusenduraselvi Duraisamy; Bharathi Pukalenthy; Sarankumar Chandran; Jagadeeshselvam Nallathambi; Karthikeyan Adhimoolam; Dhasarathan Manickam; Vellaikumar Sampathrajan; Samuel Jeberson Muniyandi; Laishram Joykumar Meitei; Nepolean Thirunavukkarasu; Ganesan Kalipatty Nalliappan; Ravikesavan Rajasekaran

doi:10.3389/fnut.2020.00134

Enhancing β-Carotene Concentration in Parental Lines of CO6 Maize Hybrid Through Marker-Assisted Backcross Breeding (MABB)

Front Nutr. 2020 Oct 14:7:134. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2020.00134. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Plant Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India.
² Department of Seed Technology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India.
³ Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Madurai, India.
⁴ Department of Plant Biotechnology, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India.
⁵ Department of Biotechnology, Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Madurai, India.
⁶ AICRP-MULLARP, Directorate of Research, Central Agricultural University, Imphal, India.
⁷ Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Central Agricultural University, Imphal, India.
⁸ Department of Genomics and Molecular Breeding, ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research, Hyderabad, India.
⁹ Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India.
¹⁰ Department of Millets, Center for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India.

Abstract

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a global health problem; many people around the world, especially children and pregnant women, are VAD deficient or insufficient. Maize is known as an important source of provitamin A for humans. Hence, enhancement of provitamin A carotenoids (pVAC) in maize varieties through breeding or biofortification is a good option for alleviating VAD in developing countries, especially India. So far, numerous maize hybrids have been developed in India. Among them, CO6, derived from UMI1200 × UMI1230, is a popular maize hybrid and adapted to different agro-climatic zones of India, especially Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India. However, CO6 is deficient for pVAC carotenoid β-carotene. Thus, the objectives of this study were to increase the β-carotene concentration in UMI1200 and UMI1230 and generate the β-carotene enriched hybrids through marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABB). For this purpose, the maize genotype HP467-15 was used as the donor for transferring the β-carotene gene, crtRB1, into UMI1200 and UMI1230. In the MABB scheme, we used one gene-specific marker (crtRB1 3'TE) and 214 simples sequence repeat (SSR) markers for foreground and background selection, respectively. As a result, six improved lines with recurrent parent genome recovery (RPGR) ranging from 90.24 to 92.42%, along with good agronomic performance, were generated. The β-carotene concentration of the improved lines ranged from 7.056 to 9.232 μg/g. Furthermore, five hybrid combinations were generated using improved lines and evaluated in a comparative yield trial (CYT) and multi-location trials (MLT) along with the original hybrid CO6 and commercial hybrids. It was revealed that ACM-M13-002 was a superior hybrid with a 7.3-fold increase in β-carotene concentration and with a comparable yield to CO6. In summary, the improved maize inbreds can be used as possible donors for the development of β-carotene-rich cultivars in maize breeding programs and the β-carotene enriched hybrid developed in this study will hold great promise for food and nutritional security.

Keywords: Co6 maize hybrid; MABB; crtRB1; vitamin A deficiency; β-Carotene.