Significance of Unreduced ( 2n ) Gametes in Plant Breeding

식물육종에 있어서 비환원 ( 2n ) 배우자의 중요성

Unreduced (2n) gametes are meiotic products (pollen or egg) having a sporophytic (somatic) chromosome number, resulting from abnormalities during either microsporogenesis or megasporogenesis. They occur naturally at a low frequency in many plant species. Unreduced (2n) gametes in plants can be identified for four possible ways as follow i) pollen size and/or shape differences between haploid (n) and diploid (2n) pollen, ii) ploidy analysis (chromosome number) of progeny or meiotic analysis (presence of dyads andlor triads at the microspore stage), iii) progeny performance and fertility and iv) dosage of isozyme and DNA markers. Unreduced (2n) gametes can be an effective breeding tool in synthesizing new cultivars, providing a unique method to maximizing heterozygosity, i.e., transferring a large proportion of the non-additive genetic effects (intra- and inter- locus interactions) h m parent to offspring and can also be used to overcome infertility of interploidy crosses. Sexual polyploidization through 2n gametes has been a major route to the formation of naturally occurring polyploids. The three mechanisms of 2n pollen formation in potato have been discovered as follow: i) parallel spindles (ps) or tripolar spindles (ts), ii) premature cytokinesis (pc-I, pc-2) and iii) synaptic mutants (sy-2, sy-3, sy-4). Genetic analysis indicated that the mechanisms of 2n gamete formation were controlled by single recessive gene in potato, alfalfa, red clover, etc., and by two recessive genes in wheat. The use of 2n gametes which can efficiently transfer germplasm fiom wild relatives to cultivated species, especially fiom diploid to tetraploid could make a contribution to the improvement of germplasm base in breeding programs.