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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » Vegetable Crops Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #248155
Title: Diversity of garlic (Allium sativum L.) using SSR, EST and AFLP markers

Author
item ACHARYA, LAXMIKANTA - Siksha O Anusandham University
item Simon, Philipp

Submitted to: Plant and Animal Genome Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/12/2009
Publication Date: 1/9/2010
Citation: Acharya, L., Simon, P.W. 2010. Diversity of garlic (Allium sativum L.) using SSR, EST and AFLP markers [abstract]. Plant and Animal Genome Conference. p. 124.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Germplasm from the center of origin/diversity is important for the breeding and fingerprinting crop plants. In this study we utilized both dominant and co-dominant markers for the characterization of garlic samples from diverse geographic origins to assess the relative utility of these markers to identify the center of garlic diversity. Genetic diversity evaluation of garlic has been hindered up to now by a lack of reliable co-dominant PCR-based markers. The availability of a relatively large set of garlic expressed sequence tags (ESTs) in 2009 has provided an opportunity to include such markers for use for garlic diversity studies. We mined this collection for simple sequence repeats (SSRs) among EST singletons and developed flanking primers. We evaluated 48 garlic samples collected from 8 different countries with 44 ESTs, 20 SSRs and 6 AFLP markers. A high degree of genetic diversity was observed with the AFLP markers in comparison to ESTs and SSRs. Average similarity was nearly 50% while the maximum similarity was more than 90% for some samples. Several SNPs and indels found in EST amplicons were associated with geographic origins in preliminary evaluations. Sequencing the amplicons from EST and singleton SSRs confirmed that these are a rich source of polymorphic markers. Our results suggest that these markers will be effective for garlic diversity assessment and identification of center of diversity.