[Study on the relationship between inheritance and immature embryo culturing capacity of maize inbreds]

The immature embryo culturing capacity of maize is crucially important to maize improvement by transgenic approach. The hereditary variation regularity of maize embryo culturing capacity is not very clear yet. The research aims to study the relationship between inheritance and immature embryo culturing capacity of maize inbreds. By culturing immature embryos of 22 maize inbreds, embryonic callus induction efficiency and regenerating plant efficiency were analyzed with cluster analysis method. And the genetic relationships of 22 inbreds were analyzed using 14 SSR primers with good polymorphism. Results showed that 22 inbreds were classified into three groups. The average embryonic callus efficiency and regenerating plant efficiency of the inbreds with good culturing capacity were 85.0% and 86.7% respectively. The average embryonic callus efficiency and regenerating plant efficiency of the inbreds with middle culturing capacity were 41.3% and 53.1% respectively. The average embryonic callus efficiency and regenerating plant efficiency of the inbreds with bad embryo culturing capacity were 2.14% and 2.75% respectively. 22 inbreds were clustered based on 110 polymorphic loci and classified into 4 genetic groups based on GS (genetic similarity) = 0.75. The consistencies were 91%, 82% and 91% for the clustered results of the single character (embryogenic callus efficiency and regenerating plant efficiency) and both characters respectively. t test showed that immature embryo culturing capacity was significantly different between different genetic groups. Therefore, the immature embryo culturing capacity could be correctly estimated by polymorphic loci from the 14 SSR primers. The clustering method by the SSR provided a basis for forecasting and selecting the immature embryo culturing capacity of maize inbreds.