Assessment of genetic purity of bulked-seed of rice CMS lines using capillary electrophoresis

Genetically pure cytoplasmic male sterile line (A-line) is essential to generate pure hybrid seeds in order to harness the yield heterosis in rice. Conventionally, seed purity testing is carried by grow-out test, which has many limitations. Seed purity assessments based on molecular markers reduce the time required for analysis significantly. However, it is very tedious as at least 200-400 seeds/seedlings are needed to be analyzed individually. An assay based on bulked-seed and molecular markers will be an ideal system. Keeping these points in view, in the present study, a co-dominant mitochondrial marker was used to test the purity of bulked parental line (A-line) seed utilizing CE system in a genetic analyzer. The results indicate that this method is very simple, accurate, and can be used to test purity of large number of samples rapidly in a cost-effective way compared to grow-out test and conventional molecular marker analysis.