Development of backcross recombinant inbred lines between Oryza sativa Nipponbare and O. rufipogon and QTL detection on drought tolerance

Abstract

Backcross populations at advanced generations are useful in evaluating the agronomic traits from unadapted germplasms, such as wild species. In this study, we generated 159 backcross recombinant inbred lines (BRILs) at the BC₂F₈ generation between Oryza sativa Nipponbare (a recurrent parent) and O. rufipogon W630 (a donor parent). These BRILs were found to have nearly homozygous genome constitutions based on the marker genotypes at 180 SSR loci covering whole chromosomes. Since their selfed progenies have almost identical genotypes in each line, they were further used for QTL analysis of drought tolerance. Out of six QTLs detected, three were found to have wild alleles with favorable effects on drought tolerance. The present BRILs with known marker data can be applied to more QTL analyses of traits specific to wild species.