Expression Profiling of MSP1 Gene Involved in Mega-gametophyte Development in Ploidy Series of Guinea Grass (Panicum maximum Jacq.)

Hybrid seeds are playing important role in increasing agricultural production. However, process of hybrid seed development involves high cost for most of the major crops. Under such situation apomixis can play crucial role in creation of one-time hybrid and maintain it for multiple generations. Apomixis and polyploidy are interrelated with each other and expression of apomixis completely relies on polyploidy. Guinea grass (Panicum maximum Jacq.) provides ideal system for research on apomixis and polyploidy because of its extensive diversity in morphological, cytological, biochemical, and molecular characteristics. The experiment was carried out in the eight-ploidy series i.e. 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, 11x and one obligate sexual Guinea grass genotype SRP75. Considering role of MSP1 gene in apomeiosis, its expression was studied in guinea grass at three developmental stages of spikelet viz., pre-meiotic, meiotic and post-meiotic. Findings of this study highlight the complex regulation of MSP-1 expression during different developmental stages and across various ploidy levels in guinea grass. At pre-meiotic stage, except 4x, downregulation pattern of MSP1 was observed in all the ploidy levels. But opposite was observed in the post-meiotic stage.