Genetic diversity and gene flow in six accessions of Meso-America teosintes

The genus Zea (teosinte) has a native distribution from Mexico to Nicaragua (Meso-America region) and studies on teosinte species may help improve our understanding of maize genetics, population genetics, genome evolution and crop evolution. Moreover, since F1 hybrids between teosinte and maize are fertile, all teosinte species can potentially contribute to maize breeding in the form of traits such as resistance or tolerance to heavy metals in the soil and other adverse environmental conditions. Gene flow between maize and teosinte occurs in Mexico and Central America. This study analysed the genetic diversity of teosintes by using the microsatellite technique on a total of 120 individuals from six different species and 21 Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR). A total of 109 alleles were found and the number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 7. The genetic diversity varied between all species from 0.514 to 0.572, with a mean value of 0.548 (Nei index). Rare and unique alleles were detected in all species, with the highest frequencies found in Zea diploperennis Iltis, Doebley et Guzman, Zea perennis (Hitchc.) Reeves et Mangelsdorf and Zea nicaraguensis Iltis et Benz, which had more than seven rare alleles each. Analysis of molecular variance revealed that 19.87% of the variation between species was statistically significant (P < 0.001). When the different species were compared with the Wright (Fst) value, genetic variation between species was confirmed. The data also revealed a moderate rate gene flow between the species. Genetic diversity was found to be somewhat higher in Central America than in Mexico.