molecular purity assessment of rice cms lines

the cytoplasmic male sterile (cms) lines that are used in production of hybrid seeds in three-line system often get contaminated with their maintainer lines. using such impure cms lines in rice hybrid seed production lead to un-uniformity and yield loss in hybrid rice. laborious and time consuming phenotypic evaluations are used for elimination of off-type plants in cms multiplication farms. the other option for off-type elimination in cms lines is application of molecular markers. in this study, pcr-based mitochondrial markers was used for distinguishing five male sterile lines from five maintainer lines. results showed that marker cms had ability to differentiate male sterile lines neda a and nemat a from their maintainers. also, marker drrcms differentiated male sterile lines dasht a, champa a and amol 3 a from their respective maintainers. results of the study demonstrate use of these two markers for off-type detection in cms seed multiplication process. this is helpful in promotion of hybrid seed production technology in iran.