Rapid and Reliable Purity Identification of F1 Hybrids of Maize (Zea may L.) Using SSR Markers

Using a rapid and cheap DNA extraction method, genomic DNA extracted from two maize F 1 hybrids and their parental lines was subjected to SSR analysis with 10 pairs of primer. Four of them could detect polymorphism between the male parents and the female parents of the two hybrids, which could be used for purity assessment of the hybrids. Moreover, the purity of seed samples of the two F 1 hybrids was identified using the SSR analysis with the four pairs of primer and isozyme analysis respectively. For one hybrid, the results obtained using the two methods are consistent, but for the other one, isozyme analysis failed to detect any polymorphism between the parental lines because they are closely related. These results clearly demonstrate that SSR marker should be useful for assessing purity of maize hybrid, even if the hybrid derived from two related parental lines.