INTRA- AND INTER-CULTIVAR GENETIC VARIABILITY IN BULGARIAN TOBACCO

Abstract

PURPOSE: The genus Nicotiana is a well-defined group of species of which tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) is the most important crop plant and plays a significant role in the economies of many countries. Recent advances in molecular genetics of the crop allowed the identification of many important genes and their location on chromosomes. However, the genetic analysis of this inbreeding, highly homozygous plant that serves as a model in many other studies is still very much work in progress. METHODS: A large proportion of the tobacco genome is represented by highly repeated DNA sequences, which makes molecular markers, based on them, an obvious first choice in diversity studies. Here we present an assessment with Inter-Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) markers of the intra- and inter-cultivar variability in a set of Bulgarian tobacco varieties. RESULTS: The screening of the 4 primers revealed a varying number of bands generated by different primers. The total number of bands varied between 4 and 13. No correlation between the total number of bands and the number of polymorphic bands was observed. Testing with ISSR primers revealed that plants with different DNA profiles can be found in varieties used. The highly similar profiles when E7 primer was used in two of the tested varieties from different production types indicate that the DNA fingerprinting technique may present a particular challenge in this crop. CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrates the power of the ISSR technique as a tool for diversity identification in tobacco.

Keywords

• nicotiana tabacum
• issr markers
• dna polymorphisms
• dna fingerprinting