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ARS Home » Plains Area » Lubbock, Texas » Cropping Systems Research Laboratory » Plant Stress and Germplasm Development Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #396084
Research Project: Development of Economically Important Row Crops that Improve the Resilience of U.S. Agricultural Production to Present and Future Production Challenges

Location: Plant Stress and Germplasm Development Research

Title: Characterization of sorghum male sterile mutants and their potential use in sorghum breeding

Author
item Chen, Junping
item Xin, Zhanguo
item HAYDEE, LAZA - Texas Tech University

Submitted to: ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/31/2022
Publication Date: 11/7/2022
Citation: Chen, J., Xin, Z., Haydee, L. 2022. Characterization of sorghum male sterile mutants and their potential use in sorghum breeding. ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting Abstracts.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Knowledge on the function and regulation of the essential genes in anther development is vital for the development and utilization of male sterile lines in hybrid breeding and production. Isolation of male sterile mutants and study of the underlying mechanisms is a prerequisite for hybrid breeding. In this study, we isolated more than 100 male-sterile (ms) sorghum mutants from an ethyl methane sulfonate–mutagenized (EMS) mutant population and performed complementation analyses among the ms mutants and with the 5 publicly available ms lines. We have identified not only new alleles for the known ms1, ms3, ms7 and ms8 lines but also a number of novel genetic loci of single or multiple alleles that are essential for normal anther development and pollen production. We also conducted detailed morphological characterization of the sorghum ms mutant panicles for selected ms lines and grouped them into several classes based on their characteristic differences in anther development. In addition, using a MutMap approach, we have identified several genes critical to sorghum male sterility and the causal gene mutations in several ms mutants. Mutations in these genes cause the sorghum panicle to fail, therefore the panicles do not produce pollen or produce premature nonviable pollen. The ms mutants, together with the causal genes identified in this study, provide new genetic tools for studying pollen development and developing new strategies to breed sorghum hybrids efficiently.