Czech J. Genet. Plant Breed., X:X | DOI: 10.17221/74/2026-CJGPB

Deciphering the genetic basis of heterosis for yield and its component traits using Brassica carinata-derived B. juncea alien introgression linesOriginal Paper

Prashant Vasisth ORCID...1, Mohit Sharma ORCID...1, Omkar Maharudra Limbalkar1,2, Gokulan Dhanasekaran1, Mohan Lal Meena1, Priyanka Jain3, Bhaskar Chandra Sahoo1, Sourav Kumar Moharana1, Mir Asif Iquebal3, Kiran B. Gaikwad1, Anshul Watts4, Naveen Singh ORCID...1
1 Division of Genetics, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India
2 ICAR-Indian Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India
3 Division of Agricultural Bioinformatics, Indian Council of Agricultural Research -Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India
4 ICAR-National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi, India

The genetic basis of heterosis, which is widely exploited to increase crop yields, remains incompletely understood. Introgression lines created through interspecific hybridisation have been found to be useful for understanding the genetic basis of heterosis for economically important traits. Therefore, we used B. carinata-derived B. juncea introgression lines (ILs) to study the genetic basis of heterosis and identify genes associated with heterosis in elite hybrids. To assess the contribution of introgressed genomic segments in both homozygous and heterozy-gous states, ILs, introgression line hybrids (ILHs), and the B. juncea recipient parents were com-pared. High mid-parent heterosis in the hybrids for yield-related traits highlights the heterotic potential of the ILs. Comparisons among ILs, B. juncea parents, and ILHs showed that most ILHs outperformed both parents in seed yield and its component traits. Candidate genes such as ARR1, ARF5, TCP22, and BKK1 for seed weight; SASP and SBT1.8 for secondary branches and total siliquae; ATKT2, KASIII, UGT73B3, UGT72E1, and SESA1 for oil content; and FLA3 for siliqua length displayed a heterozygote advantage in ILHs. Therefore, the observed pheno-typic overdominant effect and heterozygote advantage at key candidate genes indicate that overdominance or pseudo-overdominance is a primary genetic basis of yield heterosis in Brassica.

Keywords: Brassica juncea; genetic hypothesis; heterosis; interspecific hybridization; B. carinata derived lines

Received: June 4, 2026; Revised: July 30, 2026; Accepted: July 31, 2026; Prepublished online: August 19, 2026 

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