Molecular identification of the wheat male fertility gene Ms1 and its prospects for hybrid breeding

Abstract

The current rate of yield gain in crops is insufficient to meet the predicted demands. Capturing the yield boost from heterosis is one of the few technologies that offers rapid gain. Hybrids are widely used for cereals, maize and rice, but it has been a challenge to develop a viable hybrid system for bread wheat due to the wheat genome complexity, which is both large and hexaploid. Wheat is our most widely grown crop providing 20% of the calories for humans. Here, we describe the identification of Ms1, a gene proposed for use in large-scale, low-cost production of male-sterile (ms) female lines necessary for hybrid wheat seed production. We show that Ms1 completely restores fertility to ms1d, and encodes a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored lipid transfer protein, necessary for pollen exine development. This represents a key step towards developing a robust hybridization platform in wheat.Heterosis can rapidly boost yield in crop species but development of hybrid-breeding systems for bread wheat remains a challenge. Here, Tucker et al. describe the molecular identification of the wheat Ms1 gene and discuss its potential for large-scale hybrid seed production in wheat.