Author(s)

Abdoul Raouf Sayadi Maazou^1,2, Ju Qiu¹, Ling Ai¹, Mohammad G. Arabzai^1,3, Mengya Qian¹, Hameed Gul¹, Xuemei Du¹, Fangyu Xing¹, Jiarui Yan¹, Keyi Zhang¹, Ziqi Zhang¹, Qiannan Ma¹, Tianhui Huang¹, Hong Duan¹, Qianlin Xiao^1*, Zhizhai Liu^1*

¹College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
²Pan African University Life and Earth Sciences Institute (Including Health and Agriculture), University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria; International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria.
³Paktia University, Gardiz, Afghanistan.

Wild relatives possess potential genetic diversity for maize (Zea mays L.) improvement. Characterization of maize-mexicana introgression lines (ILs) is of great value to diversify the genetic base and improve the maize germplasm. Four maize-mexicana IL generations, i.e. BC1, BC2, BC3, and RIL, were constructed under the elite inbred background of 48-2, elite inbred line that is widely used in maize breeding in Southwestern China, and were phenotyped in different years and genotyped with 56110 SNPs. The results indicated that 48-2 had higher phenotypic performances than all the characterized ILs on most of the agronomic traits. Compared with other ILs, BC2 individuals exhibited more similar performance to 48-2 on most traits and possessed the highest kernel ratio (66.5%). Population structure and principal component analysis indicated that BC3 individuals gathered closer to 48-2 and exhibited the lowest mexicana-introgression frequency (0.50%), while BC2 (29.06%) and RIL (18.52%) showed higher introgression frequency. The high level of genetic diversity observed in the maize-mexicana ILs demonstrated that Z. mays ssp. mexicana can serve as a potential source for the enrichment of maize germplasm.

Maize (Zea mays L.), Mexicana (Zea mays SSP. Mexicana), Introgression Lines, Phenotypic Characterization, Molecular Characterization

Maazou, A. , Qiu, J. , Ai, L. , Arabzai, M. , Qian, M. , Gul, H. , Du, X. , Xing, F. , Yan, J. , Zhang, K. , Zhang, Z. , Ma, Q. , Huang, T. , Duan, H. , Xiao, Q. and Liu, Z. (2021) Preliminary Phenotypic and SNP-Based Molecular Characterization of Maize (Zea mays L.)-Mexicana (Zea mays SSP. Mexicana) Introgression Lines under Inbred Background of 48-2. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 12, 1073-1089. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2021.127075.