Developing haploid plants by ectopically expressing homologous BABY BOOM (BBM) genes in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and soybean (Glycine max)

The constraints in application of conventional techniques in order to develop haploid plants in a reproducible manner, it is of high demand implementing the novel approaches in highly recalcitrant crops. An example to existing novel systems is BABY BOOM (BBM) gene for which the expression from pearl millet or its ectopic expression in egg cell in rice, maize and tobacco has known to promote the haploid induction at very high rates. In this thesis work, native sorghum BBM like genes and soybean GmBBM1 gene were ectopically expressed in egg cell in respective crops under egg cell specific promoter, DD45 cloned from Arabidopsis thaliana to observe the haploid induction responses in these crops. The constructs for three BBM inserts under the control of DD45 promoter were succesfully designed. Haploidy level was checked by flow cytometer and chromosome count by root tip squash method on T 1 plants germinated from T 0 seeds in soybean and the analysis showed that chromosomal aberrations related to haploid cells and aneuploidy were appearent in three transgenic soybean lines, 18-4 (3), 37-4 (Y2) and 46Y2 (3).