Doebley John
Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.
Annu Rev Genet. 2004;38:37-59. doi: 10.1146/annurev.genet.38.072902.092425.
Maize and its closest wild relatives, the teosintes, differ strikingly in the morphology of their female inflorescences or ears. Despite their divergent morphologies, several studies indicate that some varieties of teosinte are cytologically indistinguishable from maize and capable of forming fully fertile hybrids with maize. Molecular analyses identified one form of teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis) as the progenitor of maize. Analyses of the inheritance of the morphological traits that distinguish maize and teosinte indicates that they are under the control of multiple genes and exhibit quantitative inheritance. Nevertheless, these analyses have also identified a few loci of large effect that appear to represent key innovations during maize domestication. Remaining challenges are to identify additional major and minor effect genes, the polymorphisms within these genes that control the phenotypes, and how the combination of the individual and epistatic effects of these genes transformed teosinte into maize.
玉米及其亲缘关系最近的野生近缘种大刍草，在其雌花序或果穗的形态上存在显著差异。尽管它们的形态不同，但多项研究表明，一些大刍草品种在细胞学上与玉米无法区分，并且能够与玉米形成完全可育的杂种。分子分析确定了一种大刍草（小颖玉米亚种）是玉米的祖先。对区分玉米和大刍草的形态特征的遗传分析表明，这些特征受多个基因控制，并表现出数量遗传。然而，这些分析也确定了一些具有较大效应的基因座，这些基因座似乎代表了玉米驯化过程中的关键创新。剩下的挑战是确定更多的主效和微效基因、这些基因中控制表型的多态性，以及这些基因的个体效应和上位效应的组合如何将大刍草转变为玉米。
