Plant Genome II Conference
Town & Country Conference Center, San Diego, CA, January, 1994.
PG-II: DNA PROBES FOR GENETIC ANALYSIS OF THE OIL PALM (Elaeis spp.)
DNA PROBES FOR GENETIC ANALYSIS OF THE OIL PALM (Elaeis spp.)
S.C. Cheah, L.C.-L. Ooi, A.R. Rahimah and M. Maria, Biology
Division, Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia, P.O. Box
10620, 50720 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
It has Often been said that there is low genetic variation
in the cultivated oil palm. We attempted to quantify this
variation using both RFLP and RAPD probes. Interspecific
variability was studied between the West African species, Elaeis
guineensis, and the South American E.oleifera. The evaluation of
intraspecific variability in E. guineensis was assessed in six
palm varieties, namely, albescens, virescens, dura, pisifera,
mantled and the dumpy palm. Probes derived from seedling CDNA
clones were screened for their ability to detect RFLP. Using 16
informative probes in 269 restriction enzyme/probe combinations,
it was found that the level of variability was 31% between E.
guineensis and E. oleifera but was only 7% within the guineensis
species. The RAPD technique was attempted in the search for
probes which may uncover higher levels of polymorphism in the
palm. The ability of thirty-four 10-mer primers to detect
polymorphism was screened in DNA extracted from the guineensis
varieties used for the RFLP studies au well as from S. oleifera.
Pairwise comparisons between E. oleifera and the guineensis
varieties showed that the RAPD technique detected 55% variability
between these two species. Comparisons within the varieties of
E. guineensis uncovered only 7% variability. It therefore
appears that RAPDs were able to detect a higher degree of
interspecific variability but its ability to uncover polymorphism
within the guineensis species remains the same as in the RFLP
method. Plans are under way to use both RFLP and RAPD markers
for mapping the oil palm genome.
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