Study of the alcohol dehydrogenase-1 (Adh1) gene in tetraploid corn: expression in the pollen grains and restriction fragment length polymorphism.

The results of two separate experiment are presented in this paper. In the first experiment pollen assays were carried out in Wf9 tetraploid maize plants in order to decide whether the lack of the ADH enzyme activity in the pollen grains was caused by a 'O' allele or an active transposon. On the basis of the results we suppose that the reduced ADH enzyme activity in the pollen grains is the result of a transposon affecting only the gametophyte. In the second experiment a maize Adh1-S genomic clone was constructed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and used as a probe to detect polymoprhism around the Adh1 gene in W117 S18 tetraploid maize sublines. The PCR20-EcoRI clone-enzyme combination resulted in a monomorphic RFLP pattern. The PCR20-Bgl II probe-enzyme combination yielded a multiple-banded pattern.