Characteristics and Fitness Analysis through Interspecific Hybrid Progenies of Transgenic and L. ssp.

Interspecific hybridization between transgenic crops and their wild relatives is a major concern for transgene dispersal in the environment. Under controlled conditions, artificial hand pollination experiments were performed in order to assess the hybridization potential and the fitness of interspecific hybrids between and genetically modified (GM) . Initially, six subspecies of were hybridized with GM through hand pollination. In the resulting F hybrids, the combination of ssp. (♀) × GM (♂) had the highest crossability index (16.9 ± 2.6). However, the F selfing progenies of ssp. (♀) × GM were found to be more effective in producing viable future generations with the highest crossability index (1.6 ± 0.69) compared to other subspecies. Consequently, they were used for the generation of F and F progenies. The 18 different morphological characteristics among the parental cross-combinations and F hybrid progenies were measured and visualized through hierarchical clustering. Different generations were found to be grouped based on their different morphological characteristics. The chromosome numbers among the interspecific hybrids ranged from 2n = 29 to 2n = 40. Furthermore, the SSR markers revealed the presence of genomic portions in the hybrids in comparison with their parental lines. There is a high possibility of transgene flow between GM and . The study concluded that the interspecific hybrids between and can be viable and can actively hybridize up to F generations and more. This suggests that the GM can disperse the transgene into , and that it can pass through for several generations by hand pollination in a greenhouse environment.