Plant & Animal Genomes XIII Conference Plant & Animal Genomes XIII ConferenceJanuary 15-19, 2005
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA
Marc D Ricks , Robert B Jones , Eric W Stewart , Alan Chambers , Aaron J Towers , Craig E Coleman , Daniel J Fairbanks , Mikel R Stevens , Steven G Wood , Eric N Jellen , P Jeffery Maughan
Chenopodium quinoa Willd. (quinoa) is an understudied crop grown by subsistence farmers in the Altiplano region (Bolivia and Peru) of South America. A family of amphipathic triterpenoid chemicals called saponins is commonly found throughout the plant tissue of quinoa. The most common saponins in the seed coat of quinoa are bitter and must be removed through costly washings before human consumption. The presence of the saponins in quinoa was shown to be controlled by a single dominant allele through afrosimetric and gravimetric analysis in an F2 population. The F2 population was screened using 110 polymorphic microsatellite primer pairs. Two polymorphic markers were linked to the bitter-saponin locus, the closest at a genetic distance of 20 cM. To staturate the region with additional genetic markers, AFLP bulk segregant analysis using bulks (bitter vs. non-bitter) of 10 F2 individuals each was performed. AFLP marker polymorphisms linked to the presence or absence of bitter saponins were identified and screened against the F2 population, facilitating the creation of a tight linkage group surrounding the bitter-saponin locus.