Physical mapping of introgressed chromosome fragment carrying the fertility restoring (Rfo) gene for Ogura CMS in Brassica juncea L. Czern & Coss.

KEY MESSAGE: Rfo is located on a radish chromosome fragment (~ 108 Kb), which is seated in the middle of a pretty large C genome translocation at the distal region of chromosome A09 of B. juncea. Ogura cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is used to produce hybrids in Indian mustard (Brassica juncea L.). Fertility restorers for this CMS were developed by cross-hybridizing B. juncea (AABB; 2n = 36) with B. napus (AACC; 2n = 38) carrying radish Rfo gene. This hybrid production system is normally stable, but many commercial mustard hybrids show male sterile contaminants. We aimed to identify linkage drag associated with Rfo by comparing hybridity levels of 295 handmade CMS x Rfo crosses. Although Rfo was stably inherited, hybridity was < 85 percent in several combinations. Genome re-sequencing of five fertility restorers, mapping sequencing reads to B. juncea reference and synteny analysis with Raphanus sativus D81Rfo genomic region (AJ550021.2) helped to detect ~ 108 Kb of radish chromosome (R) fragment substitution in all fertility restorers. This radish segment substitution was itself located amidst a large C genome translocation on the terminal region of chromosome A09 of B. juncea. The size of alien segment substitution varied from 11.3 (NTCN-R9) to 22.0 Mb (NAJR-102B-R). We also developed an in silico SSR map for chromosome A09 and identified many homoeologous A to the C genome exchanges in the introgressed region. A to the R genome exchanges were rare. Annotation of the substituted fragment showed the gain of many novel genes from R and C genomes and the loss of B. juncea genes from the corresponding region. We have developed a KASPar marker for marker-aided transfer of Rfo and testing hybridity levels in seed production lots.