The Construction of a Chinese Cabbage Marker-assisted Backcrossing System Using High-throughput Genotyping Technology

Abstract

The goal of marker-assisted backcrossing (MAB) is to significantly reduce the number of breeding generations required by using genome-based molecular markers to select for a particular trait; however, MAB systems have only been developed for a few vegetable crops to date. Among the types of molecular markers, SNPs (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) are primarily used in the analysis of genetic diversity due to their abundance throughout most genomes. To develop a MAB system in Chinese cabbage, a high-throughput (HT) marker system was used, based on a previously developed set of 468 SNP probes (BraMAB1, Brassica Marker Assisted Backcrossing SNP 1). We selected a broad-spectrum TuMV (Turnip mosaic virus) resistance (trs) Chinese cabbage line (SB22) as a donor plant, constructing a BC1F1 population by crossing it with the TuMV-susceptible 12mo-682-1 elite line. Foreground selection was performed using the previously developed trsSCAR marker. Background selection was performed using 119 SNP markers that showed clear polymorphism between donor and recipient plants. The background genome recovery rate (% recurrent parent genome recovery; RPG) was good, with three of 75 BC1F1 plants showing a high RPG rate of over 80%. The background genotyping result and the phenotypic similarity between the recurrent parent and BC1F1 showed a correlation. The plant with the highest RPG recovery rate was backcrossed to construct the BC2F1 population. Foreground selection and background selection were performed using 169 BC2F1 plants. This study shows that, using MAB, we can recover over 90% of the background genome in only two generations, highlighting the MAB system using HT markers as a highly efficient Brassica rapa backcross breeding system. This is the first report of the application of a SNP marker set to the background selection of Chinese cabbage using HT SNP genotyping technology.