Development of lysine and tryptophan rich maize (Zea mays) inbreds employing marker assisted backcross breeding

Abstract The molecular markers for mutant opaque2 allele and modifier loci (endosperm/amino acid) have provided opportunity to apply marker assisted backcross breeding to enhance essential amino acids (a.a.), lysine (lys) and tryptophan (trp) in maize endosperm. In present study, SSR phi057 that lie within opaque2, SSRs flanking opaque2, modifier loci and genic SSRs unlinked to opaque2 were used for molecular characterization in backcrosses between opaque2 donor, CML142 and the recurrent parents, BML2 and BML15 (parental lines of DHM119). Two double recombinant individuals, with highest recovery of recurrent parent genome (RPG) each from BML2-BC2F1 (91.25% RPG) and BML15-BC2F1 (91.77% RPG) with