Advances in Maize Genomics and Their Value for Enhancing Genetic Gains from Breeding

Table 1

Examples of MAS applications in maize improvement.

Traits	Molecular markers	Note	References
Grain yield, ear number, plant height	RFLP	Increase of hybrid yield by enhancing both parents with introgression of favorable alleles	[239, 254]
Grain yielding, percent stalk lodging	RFLP	Early generation test of inbreeding process	[255]
Grain yield, earliness	RFLP	Foreground selection for three loci of earliness and grain yield and background selection	[256]
Grain yield	SSR	Four yield QTL were selected as target introgressions in the developmentof BC3 families	[257]
Seeding emergency	RFLP	Seedling emergence of three elite commercial sweet corn inbreds has been improved by introgression of three alleles with marker-assisted backcross	[258]
Drought tolerance	RFLP, SSR	Five favorable alleles related to drought tolerance were successfully introgressed into the recurrent parent	[240]
Fertility restorer gene	SSR	Selection of Rf3 gene	[259]
Southwestern corn borer	RFLP	A total of five loci traced during backcross	[260]
Stalk strength, second-generation European corn borer	RFLP	Comparison of effectiveness between phenotypic selection and MAS on stalk strength and second-generation European corn borer resistance	[261]
Quality protein maize (QPM)	SSR	Both foreground selection for the  o2 gene and background selection for restoration of recurrent genome	[262]
Quality protein maize (QPM)	SSR	o2 gene was introgressed into herbicide resistant elite maize inbred lines using three SSR markers	[263]
Drought tolerance	RFLP	Inbred line CML247 was improved for drought tolerance through four cycles of MABC	[241]