URBANA, ILLINOIS
Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center

Report of the Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center

— Sachs, M; Stinard, P; Jackson, JD; Zimmerman, J; Carter, J

4,494 seed samples have been supplied in response to 274 requests for 2004. A total of 73 requests were received from 24 foreign countries. More than 90% of our requests were received by electronic mail or through our order form on the World Wide Web. Popular stock requests included the IBM RIL mapping populations, Hi-II lines, ig1 lines, transposable element lines, Maize Gene Discovery Project lines, and Chromatin stocks.

Approximately 10.5 acres of nursery were grown this summer at the Crop Sciences Research & Education Center located at the University of Illinois. Favorable weather in the early spring allowed the timely planting of all of our nurseries. Growing conditions were excellent, and we had a good pollination season. With timely rainfall, additional irrigation was not necessary this summer.

Special plantings were made of several categories of stocks:

1. In the “Phenotype Only” collection, we made available an additional 545 stocks in 2004.


2. Plantings were also made from donated stocks from the collections of Ed Coe (wd1 alleles, McClintock cytological stocks, and inbred B1 Pl1 lines), Hugo Dooner (bz1 alleles and transposed Ac lines), Major Goodman (South American land race accessions with mutable aleurone, and rare allozyme lines), Jerry Kermicle (various r1 alleles), Robert Lambert (inbred lg1 and lg2 lines), Bruce May and Rob Martienssen (mn* mutants from the MTM project), Karen Osmont (eta1), Margaret Smith (male sterile cytoplasm lines), Keith Slotkin and Damon Lisch (Mu killer), Tom Peterson (P1 alleles), and others. We expect to receive additional accessions of stocks from maize geneticists within the upcoming year.


3. We conducted allelism tests of several categories of mutants with similar phenotype or chromosome location. We found additional alleles of inhibitor of r1 aleurone color1 (inr1), inr2, pink scutellum1, spotted1, spotted2, viviparous9, and viviparous10. We plan to test additional members of the viviparous, spotted leaf, and pale green plant mutants. In this manner, we hope to move more stocks from our vast collection of unplaced uncharacterized mutants into the main collection.


4. We further characterized the Spotted-dilute and Fcu controlling element systems. Spotted-dilute was found to belong to the En/Spm family of transposable elements, and Fcu was found to be related to, if not identical to, mutable r1 haplotype-specific enhancers of aleurone color identified in various Venezuelan r1 accessions and characterized by Jerry Kermicle.


5. Two acres were devoted to the propagation of the large collection of cytological variants, including A-A translocation stocks and inversions. In this collection is a series of waxy1-marked translocations that are used for mapping unplaced mutants. Over the years, pedigree and classification problems arose during the propagation of these stocks. We can now supply good sources proven by linkage tests to include the correct translocated chromosomes. Additional translocation stocks from this series were tested this last year. Results of these tests will be reported in the next issue of the Maize Genetics Cooperation Newsletter. We have received wx1, su1, o2 and y1 marked translocations from W. R. Findley and wx1 marked stocks from Don Robertson. Approximately 30 of these uniquely marked translocation stocks have been added to our collection. Several others will be added as they are increased.


6. Stocks produced from the NSF project “Maize Gene Discovery, Sequencing and Phenotypic Analysis” were grown this summer. Approximately 30% of these represented plants that originally had to be outcrossed, and needed to be selfed to analyze for mutant segregation. The remaining 70% were seed increases which were planted from those families that originally yielded poorly. These increases help to maintain adequate seed stock to fill future requests.

We continue to grow a winter nursery of 0.5 acres at the Illinois Crop Improvement Association’s facilities in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico. We had an excellent winter crop last year, and all indications are that the crop will perform well this year. We plan to continue growing our winter nurseries at this location.

The NSF project “Maize Gene Discovery, Sequencing and Phenotypic Analysis” has ended production of new seed stocks. There are now a total of 41,840 stocks available at the Stock Center that were generated from this project. There continues to be a steady stream of requests for the material, and we will continue to grow selected material from this collection to increase nurseries in the future, and to maintain adequate seed supplies available to fill these requests. Increased emphasis has now been placed on the materials produced by the “Regulation of Inflorescence Architecture in Maize” project.

We have received 1,644 lines from the B73 and B73×Mo17 EMS materials from Dr. Gerry Neuffer (“Regulation of Inflorescence Architecture in Maize” project). There are sufficient seeds for most of them to be distributed. We also have recently received approximately 1,200 lines of A619 EMS materials from Torbert Rocheford which will be ready for distribution in the near future. In addition to these projects, we have received 43 lines of “Functional Genomics of Chromatin” project stocks from Karen McGinnis.

We received 311 lines of materials from Dr. Gerry Neuffer in 2004 that were screened for ear and kernel mutations in the lab and were also grown in observation fields on the University of Illinois Crop Science Research facility for observation of seedling and adult plant mutations (during our annual mutant hunt). In addition to these lines, 1,200 lines of A619 EMS stocks and 1,700 Ac lines from Tom Brutnell were also planted this year and observed for phenotype variation. Many visitors from surrounding universities came throughout the summer to walk the fields and search for unique mutations. We plan to have another mutant hunt next summer.

Our IT specialist, Jason Carter, has completed the first version of curation tools, and we are currently using these tools to maintain data for our collection. In coordination with Darwin Campbell in Ames, IA, we are now providing monthly uploads of our data to MaizeGDB, to give maize scientists access to up-to-date information about our collection. Revised tools are currently in development that will connect directly to MaizeGDB, instead of to our local database. It is hoped that these updated tools will provide a foundation for development of more advanced curation tool options for MaizeGDB itself and will eliminate the need to synchronize our database with MaizeGDB. Next year, we plan to develop even more custom software to facilitate the search and display of stock pedigree information, as well as streamlining the process of filling stock requests.

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