Cytological and molecular characterization of oat x maize partial hybrids

In cereals, interspecific and intergeneric hybridizations (wide crosses) which yield karyotypically stable hybrid plants have been used as starting points to widen the genetic base of a crop and to construct stocks for genetic analysis. Also, uniparental genome elimination in karyotypically unstable hybrids has been utilized for cereal haploid production. We have crossed hexaploid oat (2n=6x=42, Avena sativa L.) and maize (2n=2x=20, Zea mays L.) and recovered 90 progenies through embryo rescue. Fifty-two plants (58%) produced from oatxmaize hybridization were oat haploids (2n=3x=21) following maize chromosome elimination. Twenty-eight plants (31%) were found to be stable partial hybrids with 1-4 maize chromosomes in addition to a haploid set of 21 oat chromosomes (2n=21+1 to 2n=21+4). Ten of the ninety plants produced were found to be apparent chromosomal chimeras, where some tissues in a given plant contained maize chromosomes while other tissues did not, or else different tissues contained a different number of maize chromosomes. DNA restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) were used to identify the maize chromosome(s) present in the various oat-maize progenies. Maize chromosomes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 were detected in partial hybrids and chromosomal chimeras. Maize chromosomes 1 and 10 were not detected in the plants analyzed to-date. Furthermore, partial self-fertility, which is common in oat haploids, was also observed in some oat-maize hybrids. Upon selfing, partial hybrids with one or two maize chromosomes showed nearly complete transmission of the maize chromosome to give self-fertile maize-chromosome-addition oat plants. Fertile lines were recovered that contained an added maize chromosome or chromosome pair representing six of the ten maize chromosomes. Four independently derived disomic maize chromosome addition lines contained chromosome 4, one line carried chromosome 7, two lines had chromosome 9, one had chromosome 2, and one had chromosome 3. One maize chromosome-8 monosomic addition line was also identified. We also identified a double disomic addition line containing both maize chromosomes 4 and 7. This constitutes the first report of the production of karyotypically stable partial hybrids involving highly unrelated species from two subfamilies of the Gramineae (Pooideae - oat, and Panicoideae - maize) and the subsequent recovery of fertile oat-maize chromosome addition lines. These represent novel material for gene/ marker mapping, maize chromosome manipulation, the study of maize gene expression in oat, and the transfer of maize DNA, genes, or active transposons to oat.