Research on the possibility of RAPD markers application in detecting DNA polymorphism of alfalfa varieties

Abstract

Although alfalfa is the most important forage crop grown in the temperate regions, breeding improvements are not easily achieved due to high genetic complexity of this species. Because of allogamy and tetraploidy, cultivated alfalfa synthetic varieties have a high degree of genetic diversity among individual plants in populations. The knowledge of the extent of genomic variability in cultivars bearing desirable agronomic traits is an area that could benefit from molecular genetic analyses. Therefore, the aim of the present work was to evaluate the ability of RAPD markers to detect intra-population variation in fi ve alfalfa varieties. Presented here are the first results of investigating 40 randomly selected RAPD primers in order to establish whether they were able to synthesize PCR products, which would enable detection of polymorphism between the selected varieties and inside them as well.

Iako je lucerka najznačajnija gajena biljka za stočnu ishranu u umerenim klimatskim regionima, postizanje značajnih napredaka u oplemenjivanju je veoma komplikovano zbog njene složene genetske konstitucije. Usled alogamije i tetraploidije sintetičke sorte lucerke se karakterišu veoma izraženom varijabilnošću individua unutar same sorte. Poznavanje stepena genetske varijabilnosti sorti i populacija sa poželjnim agronomskim svojstvima moglo bi značajno biti unapređeno upotrebom molekularne genetske analize. Stoga je cilj ovog rada bilo ispitivanje mogućnosti RAPD markera da detektuju varijacije unutar populacije kod pet sorti lucerke različitog porekla. Predstavljeni su rezultati početnog ispitivanja 40 slučajnih RAPD prajmera u cilju ispitivanja njihovih mogućnosti da sintetišu PCR produkte koji bi omogućili kako detekciju polimorfizma između ispitivanih sorti, tako i unutar njih.