Inheritance of osmotic adjustment to water stress in three grain sorghum crosses

Water stress is one of the major constraints to the grain yield of sorghum in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world. Osmotic adjustment has been widely proposed as a plant attribute that confers adaptation to water stress. The inheritance of osmotic adjustment to water stress was investigated in a series of generations derived from the three possible bi-parental crosses between two inbred sorghum lines with a high capacity for osmotic adjustment (Tx2813 and TAM422; high-OA lines) and one with a low capacity (QL27; low-OA line). Broad-sense heritability on a single-plant basis was generally found to be high. Analysis of segregation ratios by the mixture method of clustering identified two independent major genes for high osmotic adjustment. The line Tx2813 possessed a recessive gene which is given the symbol oa1; the line TAM422 possessed an additive gene which is given the symbol OA2. There was some evidence that there may be other minor genes which influence the expression of osmotic adjustment in these crosses as two putative transgressive segregants, with higher osmotic adjustment than the parents, were identified from the cross between Tx2813 and TAM422. Populations of recombinant inbred lines were developed and characterised for osmotic adjustment for two of the crosses (QL27 x TAM422, low-OA x high-OA; Tx2813 x TAM422, high-oal x high-OA2). These will be used to conduct experiments which test hypotheses about the contribution of the high-osmotic-adjustment genes to the grain yield of sorghum under a range of water-stress conditions.     

三角帆蚌贝壳珍珠层颜色遗传规律的初步研究

为了探明三角帆蚌(Hyriopsis cumingii)贝壳珍珠层颜色的遗传规律,为珍珠层颜色的选择育种提供理论指导,利用三角帆蚌紫色和白色选育品系进行自交和正反杂交,建立了白色♂×白色♀、白色♂×紫色♀、紫色♂×白色♀和紫色♂×紫色♀4个交配组合,统计分析了每个交配组合子代的珍珠层颜色分离情况.结果显示,白色自交组合的子代贝壳珍珠层颜色全部表现为白色,没有发生颜色分离;杂交组合的子代珍珠层颜色出现两种情况,一是全部表现为紫色,二是颜色发生分离,且紫色和白色个体比例符合1∶1的比例关系;紫色自交组合的子代珍珠层颜色也出现两种情况,一是全部表现为紫色,二是颜色分离出紫色和白色,且比例符合3∶1的比例关系.结果表明,三角帆蚌贝壳珍珠层颜色受遗传基因控制,可以稳定遗传,属质量性状.珍珠层紫色性状对白色性状为显性,两种颜色性状均不存在母性遗传.白色个体为隐性纯合体,选育纯化较为容易,而紫色个体既有显性纯合体又有杂合体,选育纯化相对较困难.     

Variation in polypeptides of the major albumin protein of pea (Pisum sativum L.) : Inheritance and molecular analysis

Summary The variation in the polypeptides of the major albumin (MA) protein of different pea genotypes was studied. The two MA polypeptides, MA-L and MA-S, behave as products of single Mendelian genes at a single locus. The band patterns of fragments of restricted genomic DNA of four pea genotypes, detected by hybridisation with a cDNA encoding MA, revealed differences in the number and sizes of DNA fragments related to MA. This is discussed in relation to MA protein structure. The relative amount of MA protein in seeds appears to be strongly influenced by the total number of gene copies present in a genotype. Through molecular analysis at the protein, RNA and genomic DNA levels, a mutant line was identified which carries a deletion of the active MA structural genes.     

Independence of brachymesophalangia-5 from brachymesophalangia-5 with cone mid-5

Analysis of hand radiographs of juvenile siblings of juvenile propositi indicates that brachymesophalangia-5 alone (without cones) is separately inherited without apparent sex bias while brachymesophalangia-5 with the cone-epiphysis of mid-5 and the cone-epiphysis of mid-5 alone are both apparently inherited as a complex and with a marked excess of females over males.     

Computational procedure for a weighted diallel analysis

Summary A diallel analysis is described for the case in which the values of the characteristic used in an inheritance study have unequal variances. Such a characteristic can be a mean, a slope of a regression line, or the estimates of some parameter of a linear or nonlinear model. Computational formulae are presented which incorporate the necessary weighting along with the statistics of the Hayman-Jinks method for diallel analysis. The method described can also be used to perform a weighted diallel analysis based on means when there are unequal numbers of replications per cross. A simple example demonstrates the computations necessary to complete a weighted diallel analysis.Journal paper no. 87-117-J of the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station. This study was conducted by the senior author in partial fulfillment for the PhD degree in genetics     

Co-expression and inheritance of foreign genes in transformants obtained by direct DNA transformation of tobacco protoplasts

Summary A plasmid containing two marker genes for expression in plants was constructed. This 16 kb vector, pCT1T3, contains an intact nopaline synthase gene and a chimaeric gene consisting of the promoter and terminator regions from cauliflower mosaic virus gene VI and a structural gene, aminoglycoside phosphotransferase (APH(3′)II), from the bacterial transposon Tn5. After transformation of tobacco mesophyll protoplasts with this plasmid, several kanamycin-resistant transformants were obtained. Intensive studies on the drug tolerance of growth and differentiation of the transformants showed that the chimaeric gene was stably expressed. Of 17 independent transformants, 3 (about 18%) expressed the two marker genes, regardless of the state of differentiation, as did individual plants regenerated from the same callus. Multiple copies of the inserted DNA were found in some transformants. Viable seeds were produced by 12 out of 15 independent transformants. Seeds obtained by self-pollination were germinated on medium containing kanamycin sulphate. With the exception of one clone, resistant seedlings with green leaves and sensitive seedlings with white leaves were found to segregate in a 3:1 ratio. This suggests that the inheritance of the inserted gene is Mendelian. A reciprocal cross between the transformants and wild-type tobacco also showed nuclear transmission of the APH(3′)II gene. This was consistently maintained in a subclone of the same transformant derived from the same callus line. Stable inheritance of the single dominant character was also seen among seeds formed in several different flower pods of the same individual plants. Two clones were also found to synthesize nopaline in addition to expressing APH(3′)II. Analysis of the progeny obtained by self-crosses of such transformants revealed the simultaneous expression of these two enzymes, indicating that the two marker genes are linked on the same chromosome.     

Bean arcelin

Summary Crude proteins from seeds of wild bean accessions of Mexican origin were analyzed by one-dimensional sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS/PAGE). Several accessions had electrophoretic patterns showing unique protein bands. When analyzed by two-dimensional isoelectric focusing (IEF)-SDS/PAGE, four protein variants which had electrophoretic mobilities similar to each other but different from the other major seed proteins, phaseolin and lectin, were observed. All four variants, which have not been described in cultivated beans, were tentatively named arcelin proteins and designated as arcelin 1, 2, 3 and 4. Arcelins 3 and 4 had polypeptides that comigrated on two-dimensional gels and these variants occurred in accessions that were collected in the same location. Analysis of single F₂ seeds from crosses among arcelin-containing lines and from crosses between cultivated beans lines without arcelin and arcelin-containing lines revealed that differences in arcelin polypeptide expression were inherited monogenically. The alleles for different arcelin variants were codominant to each other and dominant to the absence of arcelin. The gene(s) controlling arcelin proteins were unlinked to those controlling phaseolin expression and tightly linked to genes controlling the presence of lectin proteins (< 0.30% recombination). The possible origins of arcelin genes and their potential role in bruchid resistance are discussed.     

Monosomic analysis of genes for resistance against stem rust races in bread wheat

Summary Two Abelmoschus species, viz., A. manihot (L.) Medik and A. manihot (L.) Medik ssp. manihot, resistant to Okra yellow vein mosaic (YVM) were crossed to A. esculentus cv. Pusa Sawani, a susceptible culture. The hybrids were resistant and partially fertile. Segregation pattern for disease reaction in F₂, BC₁ and subsequent generations of the two crosses revealed that resistance to YVM is controlled by a single dominant gene in each species.     

The mechanism of the mixed inheritance of chloroplast genes in Pelargonium

Summary The distributions are given of gene frequencies among embryos after G X W and W X G plastid crosses within and between eight Pelargonium cultivars and some of their inbred or hybrid derivatives.Two distinct segregation patterns are recognized. Homozygous type I female parents (Pr₁Pr₁) have a high frequency of progeny with only maternal alleles, are intermediate for biparental and low for paternal offspring. Heterozygous type II female plants (Pr₁Pr₂) have an equally high frequency of maternal and paternal offspring and a generally low biparental frequency. These correspond to L-shaped and U-shaped gene frequency distributions respectively in which the only modes are at 0 per cent (maternal embryos) and 100 per cent (paternal embryos), with no mode corresponding to the population mean and no sign of a Gaussian distribution.The extremely variable plastid gene frequencies are strongly influenced by the maternal nuclear genotype and by the plastid genotype in which the wild-type allele is always more successful than the mutant in strict comparisons.The relative frequencies of maternal and paternal zygotes, and the mean gene frequency among all the zygotes in a cross, are explicable in terms of the input frequencies of genes from the two parents, their degree of mixing, and by some form of selective replication of plastids. This selection is controlled by nuclear and plastid genotypes which may act in the same direction, to increase the frequency of either the maternal or the paternal alleles, or in opposition. But selection alone is inadequate to explain the shapes of the gene frequency distributions. Instead, a model is proposed in which the segregation or replication of plastids appears to have a strong random element, which results in random drift of gene frequencies within a heteroplasmic zygote or embryo.     

Maternal,paternal, additive,and dominance components of variance in Gerbera

Summary Estimates of additive, dominance, maternal, and paternal components of variance were obtained for a sample of 18 traits, including measurements of yield, scapes, flowers, disk, ray and trans florets, leaves, and branching in the Davis population of Gerbera hybrida. The results, based on the covariance of reciprocals, indicate that although heritability averaged 0.52, extranuclear maternal or paternal effects are not important sources of variability. Therefore, reciprocal differences do not seriously affect estimates of additive variance or heritability in this population.