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Hybrid Embryo Rescue in Crop Improvement

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Book cover Plant Biology and Biotechnology

Abstract

Failure to produce a hybrid may be due to pre- or post-fertilization incompatibility barriers. The hybrid embryo, if produced, may abort before maturation. In such cases, the embryo resulting from interspecific or intergeneric crosses can be potentially rescued and cultured to produce a whole plant, thus facilitating transfer of desirable genes from wild relatives into cultivated species. This approach is especially warranted in horticultural crops in situations where one or both parents may be seedless, initial fruitlet drop post-fertilization may be very high, the endosperm may be inimical, etc. Protocols have been developed for hybrid embryo rescue in several top-of-the-line fruit crops suffering from an inability to breed naturally in wide crosses. Techniques of hybrid embryo rescue figure among the very important commercially applicable breeding strategies under non-GM biotechnologies. It is a nonconventional, tissue culture-based technique used for creating new genotypes, often used to rescue plant embryos from aborting progeny ovules/seeds. Distant crosses are often sought to transfer genetic traits from secondary and tertiary gene pools to the cultivated, primary gene pool of crop plants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Hessaraghatta Lake Post, Bangalore, Karnataka, 560 089, India

    Leela Sahijram & B. Madhusudhana Rao

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  1. Leela Sahijram
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  2. B. Madhusudhana Rao
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Correspondence to Leela Sahijram .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sri Biotech Laboratories India Limited, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Bir Bahadur

  2. Department of Genetics, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Manchikatla Venkat Rajam

  3. Division of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bangalore, Karnataka, India

    Leela Sahijram

  4. Center for Pharmaceutics, Pharmacognosy and Pharmacology, School of Life Sciences, Institute of Trans-Disciplinary Health Science and Technology (IHST), Bangalore, Karnataka, India

    K. V. Krishnamurthy

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Sahijram, L., Madhusudhana Rao, B. (2015). Hybrid Embryo Rescue in Crop Improvement. In: Bahadur, B., Venkat Rajam, M., Sahijram, L., Krishnamurthy, K. (eds) Plant Biology and Biotechnology. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2283-5_18

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