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Genetic enhancement of essential amino acids for nutritional enrichment of maize protein quality through marker assisted selection

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Abstract

Maize grain protein is deficient in two essential amino acids, lysine and tryptophan, defining it as of low nutritive value. The discovery of opaque2 (o2) gene has led to the development of quality protein maize (QPM) that has enhanced levels of essential amino acids over normal maize. However, the adoption of QPM is still very limited. The present study aims at improving the quality of normal four maize inbred lines (LM11, LM12, LM13 and LM14) of single cross hybrids; Buland (LM11 × LM12) and PMH1 (LM13 × LM14) released in India for different agro-climatic zones by introgressing o2 allele along-with modifiers using marker assisted backcross breeding. Both foreground and background selection coupled with phenotypic selection were employed for selection of o2 specific allele and maximum recovery of the recurrent parent genome (87–90%) with minimum linkage drag across the crosses. The converted QPM lines had < 25% opaqueness which is close to the respective recurrent parents. The QPM versions showed high level of tryptophan content ranging from 0.72 to 1.03 across the four crosses. The newly developed best QPM lines were crossed in original combinations to generate QPM hybrids. The grain yield of improved QPM hybrids was at par and there was significant increase in tryptophan content over the original hybrids.The integrated marker assisted, and phenotypic selection approach holds promise to tackle complex genetics of QPM. The dissemination and adoption of improved QPM versions may help to counteract protein-energy malnutrition in developing countries.

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Funding

Financial support from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, through the project entitled ‘Molecular characterization and introgression of QPM for maize quality improvement through marker assisted selection’ (BT/PR/9468/AGR/02/424/2007/17.4.08) is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Agricultural Biotechnology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

    Ravneet Kaur, Gurleen Kaur, Yogesh Vikal, Jagveer Singh, Gaganpreet Kaur Dhariwal & Ankit Gulati

  2. Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

    Gurjit Kaur Gill, Sunita Sharma, Amandeep Kaur & Jasbir Singh Chawla

  3. Reginal Research Station, Gurdaspur, Ludhiana, India

    Ashok Kumar

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  1. Ravneet Kaur
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  2. Gurleen Kaur
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  3. Yogesh Vikal
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  11. Jasbir Singh Chawla
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Contributions

Design the Study: YV, JSC and GKG; Field experiments: RK, GK, AK, AK, AG and GKD; Biochemical analyses: SS, RK and GK; Statistical analyses: YV and JS; Manuscript writing: YV, GKG and JS.

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Correspondence to Yogesh Vikal.

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Kaur, R., Kaur, G., Vikal, Y. et al. Genetic enhancement of essential amino acids for nutritional enrichment of maize protein quality through marker assisted selection. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 26, 2243–2254 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-020-00897-w

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