PubMed · 13266805
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J S HUXLEY. 1955-09-27. Heterosis and morphism.. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1955.0049
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The genetic basis of heterosis was studied through mid-parent, standard variety and better parent for 11 quantitative traits in 17 parental lines and their 10 selected hybrids in rice (Oryza sativa L.). The characters were plant height, days to flag leaf initiation, days to first panicle initiation, days to 100% flowering, panicle length, flag leaf length, days to maturity, number of fertile spikelet/panicle, number of effective tillers/hill, grain yield/10-hill, and 1000-grain weight. In general the hybrids performed significantly better than the respective parents. Significant heterosis was observed for most of the studied characters. Among the 10 hybrids, four hybrids viz., 17Ax45R, 25Ax37R, 27Ax39R, 31Ax47R, and 35Ax47R showed highest heterosis in 10-hill grain yield/10-hill. Inbreeding depression of F2 progeny was also studied for 11 characters of 10 hybrids. Both positive and negative inbreeding depression were found in many crosses for the studied characters, but none was found significant. Selection of good parents was found to be the most important for developing high yielding hybrid rice varieties.
Seedling vigor is important for optimum stand establishment in rice cropping. In this paper,a set of 264 F12 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived by single seed descent from a cross between Lemont (japonica) and Teqing (indica) was phenotyped for three seedling vigor related traits, including seed germination rate (GR), seedling shoot length and dry weight by the rolled paper towel tests. The phenotype data and a linkage map consisting of 198 DNA markers were combined to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for seedling vigor by using a computer program QTLMapper1.0. A total of 13 putative main-effect QTL were detected. All of these QTL had much smaller effects on the traits with a mean R2 of 6.2%, ranging from 2.9% to 12.7%. As for digenic interaction, 18 pairs of epistatic loci with R2 > or = 5% were resolved with a mean R2 of 6.9% ,ranging from 5.1% to 11.8%, which was slightly larger than that of the main-effect QTL identified for the traits. The majority of the main-effect and epistatic loci detected for seedling vigor related traits were clustered in a few chromosome regions. Together, seven such chromosome regions (CRs), each with three or more seedling vigor main-effect and epistatic loci, were found to be highly associated with seedling vigor. These CRs can be classified into three types, i.e. M-CRs, E-CRs and ME-CRs. For some CRs just like CR(SV-6), the QTL within one CR were found to interact simultaneously with QTL within more than one other CRs to affect different seedling vigor related traits. The above results revealed that seedling vigor in rice is controlled by many loci, most of which have relatively small effects. Comparatively, epistasis as a genetic factor would be more important than main-effects of QTL for seedling vigor in rice. Nevertheless, the effects of the QTL are still large enough to be detected and in fact several chromosome regions were found to be highly associated with seedling vigor in very different populations as compared with previous studies. Molecular tagging of favorable alleles and marker-aided selection strategy may, therefore, be a promising approach to the improvement of rice seedling vigor.
When isolated nuclei of a diploid oomycete, Phytophthora parasitica, were fused with protoplasts of another strain of the same species, the regenerated nuclear hybrids grew faster than the parental isolates. Such a phenomenon did not occur in hybrids regenerated from mitochondrion-protoplast or protoplast-protoplast fusion products between these two strains. These results indicate that hybrid vigor is the result of the interaction between two different kinds of nuclei, but not between mitochondria, and they suggest that the presence of mitochondria from nuclear donor cells represses the expression of increased vigor. The nuclear hybrids also expressed increased fungicide resistance and propagule production. Increased vigor in growth was also observed in the interspecific nuclear hybrids when isolated nuclei of P. parasitica were transferred into protoplasts of Phytophthora capsici, and vice versa. This phenomenon may have potential applications, such as the creation of superior fungal strains and plant cultivars with improved commercial traits for usage in industry and agriculture.