Correlation between genetic distance and heterosis based on yield-related molecular markers in indica rice.

Molecular markers tightly linked to the QTLs underlying yield were employed for studying genetic diversity among 13 parents of hybrid rice.The relationship between genetic distance(GD) and hybrid performance was analyzed.The results indicated that:(1) Selected from 79 markers,34 polymorphism markers produced 84 alleles.The average allele number was 2.5.(2) The cluster analysis classified 13 rice parents' lines into two groups(i.e.maintainer line group and restorer line group) and fitted better with the pedigree information.(3) The correlation between genetic distance and the heterosis of yield-related traits was positive but insignificant(0.04-0.25).The genetic distance showed that the genetic basis of inter-maintainer lines and inter-restorer lines was rather narrow,while the genetic distance between maintainer and restorer lines were relatively distant,which would explain the positive relationship between genetic distance and heterosis.