Analysis of vitamin E content and heterosis in sweet corn（Zea mays L.）

【Objective】The heterosis of hybrids derived from different sweet corn inbred lines were analyzed to excavate the combination and parents with high vitamin E（VE）content，so as to provide materials and theoretical basis for efficiently breeding high VE content sweet corn varieties.【Method】Normal phase high performance liquid chromatography （NP-HPLC）was used to determine the content of VE components in 11 sweet corn inbred lines with different origins and obvious phenotypic differences and their 11 hybrid combinations. The heterosis of VE components was analyzed to screen the high content sweet corn materials.【Result】The contents of VE components in inbred lines and hybrids indicated extremely significance level（P<0.01，the same below）. The contents of total tocophenol（TTF），total tocophenol（TT3） and total VE（TVE）in inbred lines 26F Bai，Jinhuang and hybrids Yuetan 41，Yuetan 29 and Yuetan 35 were high. The contents of all VE components in hybrids were correlated with the mean values of parents and high-value parents；of which the contents of α-tocopherol（αT）and α-tocoptrienol（αT3）were significantly（P<0.05）or extremely positively correlated with the mean values of parents and high-value parents. In terms of heterosis analysis，the heterosis of VE content in 11 hybrids mainly showed negative heterosis；the TVE content mid-parentheterosisranged from - 39.07% to 56.97%，and the over-parent heterosis ranged from -52.44 to 49.28%. Four hybrids showed super-parent heterosis，and the hybrids Yuetian 41，Yuetian 38 and Yuetian 35 which derived from inbred lines TY6 and Nongbao 2021 Bai presented stronger heterosis and higher TVE content.【Conclusion】There are differences in VE content among different genotypes of sweet corn. The heterosis of VE content is mainly negative mid-parent heterosis. The parents with high VE contents may not obtain hybrid with strong heterosis. For improving the VE content in sweet corn，the materials with high VE content， especially those with high αT or αT3 contents，can be selected as parents to accelerate the breeding process.