TITLE:
Ethyl Methanesulfonate (EMS)-Mediated Mutagenesis of Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)
AUTHORS:
Lina Wang, Bing Zhang, Jinrui Li, Xiaoyu Yang, Zhonghai Ren
KEYWORDS:
Cucumber, Ethyl Methanesulfonate, Mutagenesis
JOURNAL NAME:
Agricultural Sciences,
Vol.5 No.8,
July
24,
2014
ABSTRACT: Ethyl
methanesulfonate (EMS) is a stable and effective chemical mutagen. In this
study, cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.
cv. “Shannong No. 5”) seeds were treated by 1% EMS for 12 h, 24 h and 48 h to
optimize EMS mutagenesis and determined median lethal dose of EMS (1% EMS and
24 h) for “Shannong No. 5”. After treated by 1% EMS for 24 h, 541 M1 plants
were grown in greenhouse for phenotype investigation. The fertility of M1
cucumbers was very low, and only 79 lines produced seeds after self crossing.
60 independent M2 families comprising 600 M2 plants were investigated for
phenotypic alteration, and 11 individual mutant lines were isolated into six
groups: short-fruit mutants, long-fruit mutants, small-flower mutants, big-flower mutants, opposite-tendril mutants and clustered-leaf mutants. The mutation
frequency was 18.3%. Two selected representatives, short-fruit mutants and clustered-leaf mutants, showed 1:3 of segregation ratio in M2 populations. This ratio is consistent
with classic Mendelian model, indicating that the two kinds of mutants may be
controlled by a single recessive gene, respectively. Long-fruit phenotype was stably inherited and no segregation was
observed in M3 generation, indicating that this mutant line may be homozygous.