Oil Palm Male Meiosis Profiling: From Field Observation To Cytogenetics Analysis

Male meiosis is a principal process in microsporogenesis, important for male fertility and gamete viability in higher plants. This division ensures genome stability of sexually reproducing organisms and creates genome variation enabling diversity in a species. We present a structured profiling of male meiosis in the interspecific oil palm hybrid, Elaeis oleifera x Elaeis guineensis (OxG), for an in-depth understanding of the process. In the pollen mother cells (PMC), interaction between the parental genomes was observed in early prophase I, via genomic in situ hybridisation (GISH). At this meiosis I stage, the chromosome pairing revealed 16 complete bivalents, confirming the homologous pairing of each E. guineensis and E. oleifera chromosomes. Interestingly, we found that the E. guineensis and E. oleifera pollens had distinct morphologies, which represents another feature that differentiates the two species. This could also be used as a basis diagnostic tool to evaluate sterility in oil palm interspecific hybrids.