Performance of Indirect ELISA for Maize Hybrid Purity Test

Abstract

Maize is the second large crop in China that needed 100-120 million tons seeds for an average year and the production loss caused by inferior seeds was amazing. Bing an allogamous wind-pollinated plant, maize hybrid purity problem is mainly reflected the inbred lines seed mixed in hybrid. Therefore it is important to have specific and sensitive purity test methods to prevent the poor seeds into market. In this paper, we developed an inderect ELISA using polyconal antibody against maize inbred lines to bind extracts from whole grain with pure water. The single blind trial demonstrated that the average detectable rate of indrect ELISA was 95.2%. We also extended this method to other maize hybrid varieties, found it has no ability to descriminate the maize hybrid facticity.