Observation of Sex Differentiation in sorghum by Use of Induced Male-Sterile Mutants

Barabás, Z.

doi:10.1038/195257a0

Cited by 13 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We could not determine whether ms8 was allelic to ms4 , ms5 , or ms6 , because these lines are no longer available. Collectively, our results support that ms8 is a novel male sterile locus distinct from all NMS lines currently available [21, 22]. …”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 84%

Morphological Characterization of a New and Easily Recognizable Nuclear Male Sterile Mutant of Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor)

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) is one of the most important grain crops in the world. The nuclear male sterility (NMS) trait, which is caused by mutations on the nuclear gene, is valuable for hybrid breeding and genetic studies. Several NMS mutants have been reported previously, but none of them were well characterized. Here, we present our detailed morphological characterization of a new and easily recognizable NMS sorghum mutant male sterile 8 (ms8) isolated from an elite inbred BTx623 mutagenized by ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS). Our results show that the ms8 mutant phenotype was caused by a mutation on a single recessive nuclear gene that is different from all available NMS loci reported in sorghum. In fertile sorghum plants, yellow anthers appeared first during anthesis, while in the ms8 mutant, white hairy stigma emerged first and only small white anthers were observed, making ms8 plants easily recognizable when flowering. The ovary development and seed production after manual pollination are normal in the ms8 mutant, indicating it is female fertile and male sterile only. We found that ms8 anthers did not produce pollen grains. Further analysis revealed that ms8 anthers were defective in tapetum development, which led to the arrest of pollen formation. As a stable male sterile mutant across different environments, greenhouses, and fields in different locations, the ms8 mutant could be a useful breeding tool. Moreover, ms8 might be an important for elucidating male gametophyte development in sorghum and other plants.

show abstract