Anotace:
Presented in the article are the results of the assessment of 108 maize lines in terms of presence of favourable alleles of high carotenoid content in grain. The relationship between the genetic distances of the allele state of the key carotenogenesis genes and the content of carotenoids in maize grain was determined using the Mantel test. Favourable alleles in maize lines were identified by three out of four carotenogenesis markers under study: lcyε-SNP216, lcyε-3'INDL and crtRB1-3'TE. The frequencies of the favourable alleles varied from 0.28 by markers lcyε-SNP216 and crtRB1-3'TE to 0.90 by marker lcyε-3'INDL. Eight of the studied lines contained favourable alleles by these polymorphic markers. According to the result of spectrophotometric analysis of the content of carotenoids, the highest value (7.15 μg/mg) was found in line DK2732 and the lowest (0.7 μg/mg) in line ISK31. In order to assess the efficiency of the proposed markers for evaluation of the content of carotenoids in maize grain, genetic distances between the studied lines were determined by the allele state of the genes under study and by the content of carotenoids. Mantel test showed that there is a correlation between genetic distances by DNA markers and content of carotenoids. Therefore, DNA markers lcyε-SNP216, lcyε-3'INDL and crtRB1-3'TE are suitable for the assessment of maize breeding material for the purpose of selection for a high content of carotenoids in grain.