Introgression of the high grain protein gene Gpc-B1 in an elite wheat variety of Indo-Gangetic Plains through marker assisted backcross breeding

Abstract

Grain protein content (GPC) in wheat has been a major trait of interest for breeders since it has enormous end use potential. In the present study, marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) was successfully used to improve GPC in wheat cultivar HUW468. The genotype Glu269 was used as the donor parent for introgression of the gene Gpc-B1 that confers high GPC. In a segregating population, SSR marker Xucw108, with its locus linked to Gpc-B1 was used for foreground selection to select plants carrying Gpc-B1. Background selection, involving 86 polymorphic SSR markers dispersed throughout the genome, was exercised to recover the genome of HUW468. For eliminating linkage drag, markers spanning a 10 cM region around the gene Gpc-B1 were employed to select lines with a donor segment of the minimum size carrying the gene of interest. Improved lines had significantly higher GPC and displayed 88.4–92.3 per cent of the recurrent parent genome (RPG). For grain yield, selected lines were at par with the recurrent parent HUW468, suggesting that there was no yield penalty. The whole exercise of transfer of Gpc-B1 and reconstitution of the genome of HUW468 was completed within a period of two and half years (five crop cycles) demonstrating practical utility of MABC for developing high GPC lines in the background of any elite and popular wheat cultivar with relatively higher speed and precision. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

Keywords

• Grain protein content
• Triticum aestivum
• Marker assisted selection
• Foreground selection
• Background selection