Genomic affinities of Zea luxurians, Z. diploperennis, and Z. perennis: Meiotic behavior of their F1 hybrids and genomic in situ hybridization (GISH)

Since 1987 cytological evidence has arisen in our laboratory, pointing to x = 5 as the original basic chromosome number of maize and its related wild species. This paper deals with the analysis of the meiotic behavior of F1 hybrids Zea luxurians × Z. diploperennis (2n = 20) and Z. luxurians × Z. perennis (2n = 30). In the first hybrid the most frequent configuration was 8ll + 4l and in the latter was 5lll + 5ll + 5l. Applying GISH (genomic in situ hybridization) to mitotic chromosomes of Z. luxurians we found that DAPI (4', 6-diamidino-2-phenylindole) positive bands located in all telomeric regions of this species did not hybridize with either Z. perennis or Z. diploperennis genomic probe. Therefore, Z. luxurians has a repetitive sequence that can be used in fluorescent staining to identify its chromosomes. When GISH was employed on metaphase I of the 2n = 30 hybrid, all the univalents showed distinctive telomeres of Z. luxurians, while the bivalents did not present any signal. These findings show that the formation of bivalent-univalent configurations is not a random event. The bivalents tend to be spatially separated and are very often observed forming an independent group of 5II. Finally, trivalents were composed by one chromosome labeled in its telomeric regions, and two smaller and unlabeled ones. The use of chromosome markers of Z. luxurians demonstrated to be a good step forward in interpreting the nature of meiotic configurations in 2n = 30 Zea spp. hybrids. They can help to clarify the relationship between genomes and provide a useful addition to the taxonomic classification in the genus Zea.Key Words: Zea hybrids, evolution, cytogenetics, repetitive sequences, heterochromatic knobs.