CAROTENOID BIOSYNTHETIC PATHWAY GUIDED DEVELOPMENT OF NUTRITIONALLY ENHANCED ORANGE SWEET CORN

Primary Goal:The long-term goal of this STTR project is to develop novel commercial Orange Sweet Corn hybrids with high levels of health-benefitting antioxidant carotenoids and excellent eating quality. To achieve this goal, a marker-assisted biosynthetic pathway guided breeding approach will be developed to facilitate the introgression of favorable alleles for multiple carotenoid genes from a diverse set of high carotenoid donor lines into elite sweet corn lineages. The technical objectives below will be pursued during the Phase I project to establish the technical feasibility of this approach.Objective 1:Develop a set of high carotenoid Orange Sweet Corn backcross lineages that can be used to create finished inbred lines and F1 hybrids during Phase II.Objective 2:Develop a set of molecular markers associated with carotenoid biosynthetic pathway genes that control carotenoid phenotypes that can be used in Phase II for the marker-assisted selection of sweet corn lines with enhanced carotenoid levels.