Research progress in plant hybrid lethality.

Plant hybrid lethality is a sub-type of reproductive isolation,which belongs to the post zygotic reproductive isolation,and plays an important role in speciation and maintaining integrity of species,but also is a challenge encountered by the breeders in the process of developing new varieties. Studying the hybrid lethality existing in multiple species can help to understand the occurance mechanism of reproductive isolation,and apply lethal gene in crop breeding program can provide theoretical guidance for crop improvement. This paper expounded the hybrid lethality cases,lethality influence factors,genetic pattern research,gene mapping,etc.,and prospected the application of modern biological information technique to hybrid lethality phenomenon,so as to further reveal the occurance mechanism of hybrid lethality and the structure,and function of lethal gene.