Construction of introgression lines carrying wild rice (Oryza rufipogon Griff.) segments in cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.) background and characterization of introgressed segments associated with yield-related traits

Introgression lines (ILs) are useful tools for precise mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and the evaluation of gene action or interaction in theoretical studies. A set of 159 ILs carrying variant introgressed segments from Chinese common wild rice (Oryza rufipogon Griff.), collected from Dongxiang county, Jiangxi Province, in the background of Indica cultivar (Oryza sativa L.), Guichao 2, was developed using 126 polymorphic simple sequence repeats (SSR) loci. The 159 ILs represented 67.5% of the genome of O. rufipogon. All the ILs have the proportions of the recurrent parent ranging from 92.4 to 99.9%, with an average of 97.4%. The average proportion of the donor genome for the BC₄F₄ population was about 2.2%. The mean numbers of homozygous and heterozygous donor segments were 2 (ranging 0–8) and 1 (ranging 0–7), respectively, and the majority of these segments had sizes less than 10 cM. QTL analysis was conducted based on evaluation of yield-related traits of the 159 ILs at two sites, in Beijing and Hainan. For 6 out of 17 QTLs identified at two sites corresponding to three traits (panicles per plant, grains per panicle and filled grains per plant, respectively), the QTLs derived from O. rufipogon were usually associated with an improvement of the target trait, although the overall phenotypic characters of O. rufipogon were inferior to that of the recurrent parent. Of the 17 QTLs, 5 specific QTLs strongly associated with more than one trait were observed. Further analysis of the high-yielding and low-yielding ILs revealed that the high-yielding ILs contained relatively less introgressed segments than the low-yielding ILs, and that the yield increase or decrease was mainly due to the number of grain. On the other hand, low-yielding ILs contained more negative QTLs or disharmonious interactions between QTLs which masked trait-enchancing QTLs. These ILs will be useful in identifying the traits of yield, tolerance to low temperature and drought stress, and detecting favorable genes of common wild rice.