Inheritance of selected pathotoxin resistance in maize plants regenerated from cell cultures

Abstract

Texas male-sterile cytoplasm (cms-T) maize is susceptible to Helminthosporium maydis race T and its pathotoxin, whereas nonsterile cytoplasm maize is resistant. Callus cultures initiated from immature embryos of a cms-T genotype, BC₁A188(T), were susceptible to the toxin and were capable of plant regeneration. Toxin-resistant cell lines were selected by a sublethal enrichment procedure in which cms-T callus was grown for several selection cycles (subculture transfers) in the presence of progressively higher concentrations of toxin. Periodically during the selection process, plants were regenerated from the cms-T cultures to determine their susceptibility or resistance to the toxin. Plants regenerated after four cycles of selection were male-sterile and toxin-susceptible as shown by leaf bioassays. All plants regenerated from cell lines isolated from the fifth selection cycle onward, however, were toxin-resistant and 52 of 65 were fully male-fertile. The remaining 13 “male-sterile” resistant plants did not shed pollen and did not resemble cms-T plants in tassel morphology. Some “male-sterile” plants produced anthers containing a small amount of starch-filled pollen, suggesting that the sterility of these 13 plants was not the result of the cms-T trait. Leaf bioassays on F₁ progeny from regenerated resistant plants indicated that resistance to the toxin was inherited only through the female. The male-fertility trait also was inherited only through the female. After inoculation with H. maydis race T spores, leaf lesion size for progeny from regenerated resistant plants coincided with their reaction to the toxin. This result indicated that plant resistance to the pathogen was closely correlated with the toxin resistance obtained through cell culture selection.