New male-sterile allele of the male fertility gene Ms30 --Trimnell, MR, Fox, TW, Patterson, E, Albertsen, MC A new male-sterile allele of Ms30 has been identified from a series of male-sterile mutants received several years ago from the late Dr. Earl Patterson of the University of Illinois. This mutant had been designated as ms*-6028 (see MNL 69:126-128).

To reduce the number of test-crosses required to determine allelism, we planted an F2 segregating family of ms*-6028 in our 1998 Johnston nursery for chromosome arm mapping. Leaf punches were taken from 23 male-sterile plants and 24 male-fertile plants for DNA isolation. Approximately 60 SSR markers, evenly dispersed throughout the genome, were used to genotype these samples. Linkage was found between the SSR marker phi093 (chromosome 4, Bin 8) and the male-sterile phenotype.

After receiving the mapping data, we test-crossed ms*-6028 with the recessive male-sterile alleles that are located on chromosome 4 (ms30), as well as the unmapped recessive male-sterile alleles (ms24, ms27). The resultant progeny were grown in our 1999 Johnston nursery. At least 40 plants were observed for each of the test-crosses. The test-crosses with the unmapped male-sterile mutants were all fertile, indicating ms*-6028 was not allelic to either mutant. The reciprocal test-crosses of ms*-6028 with ms30 gave the following results, indicating allelism:
 
Female (homozygous) Male (heterozygous)
Progeny
 X2(1:1)
ms*-6028 ms30 10 Fertiles 16 Steriles 1.38
ms30 ms*-6028 19 Fertiles 22 Steriles 0.22

Our new designation for this Ms30 allele is ms30-6028.
 
 

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