Marker-Assisted Introgression of bmr6 Allele into Sweet Sorghum and High Biomass Sorghum Lines for Improving Biomass-Based Biofuel Yield
Résumé
The production of renewable fuels from plants is important because of their high energy, low cost, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The introgression of the bmr gene into elite biomass sorghum reduces lignin concentration in the cell wall, which improves biomass enzymatic digestibility and hence 2G ethanol bioconversion process yield. The present research aimed to study the impact of introgression of lignin-reducing bmr-6 gene into sweet sorghum to enhance biofuel production. The gene was introgressed in elite wild-type (WT) lines using the backcrossing technique. The plant material included three WT recurrent parents, i.e., two bmr sweet sorghum varieties (SSV84, ICSV18003) and one bmr high biomass sorghum variety (ICSV15024), and a bmr6 mutant donor (N609). Recurrent parents were hand emasculated and bmr (bmr-6) trait successfully transferred into elite WT lines using marker-assisted backcrossing; BC2F1 populations were selfed to obtain BC2F2 populations. The presence of bmr-6 allele in the introgressed lines were confirmed by KASPar assays.