Plant & Animal Genome V Conference
Town & Country Hotel, San Diego, CA, January 12-16, 1997.
PAG-V: P63 - MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF 48 TARO (<i>Colocasia esculenta </i>) LINES USING RAPD MARKERS.
P63
MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF 48 TARO (Colocasia esculenta ) LINES USING RAPD MARKERS.
CHO, JOHN J(1), Sally V Irwin(1), Kiara Banks(2), Paki H Kaufusi(3)
1. Department of Plant Pathology, University of Hawaii, Kula Research Station
2. Florida Institute of Technology
3. Department of Plant Pathology, University of Hawaii
Taro ( Colocasia esculenta is widely grown for food throughout the world, including Africa, Asia, the West Indies and South America. In the Pacific, taro is a major staple in the diets of the inhabitants in Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia including Hawaii. Until now, little work has been done to characterize this crop at the molecular level. We analyzed forty-eight taro cultivars originating from several locations through out the Pacific, by DNA fingerprinting using RAPD markers. UPGMA cluster analysis of genetic similarity estimates (Jaccard's coefficient), separated the lines into 40 distinct groups. This information will provide taro breeders with a genetic basis for selection of parents toward crop improvement. Several fungal diseases cause crop loss in taro. Taro leaf blight (TLB) caused by Phytophthora colocasiae , is one of the most serious diseases of the crop. We are in the process of establishing populations segregating for taro leaf blight resistance in order to identify markers linked to this gene(s) and to develop a genetic linkage map in taro. Polymorphic markers identified in the DNA fingerprinting study will be used to screen our taro mapping population to help establish a taro genetic map and to look for markers linked to TLB resistance genes. We plan to continue our DNA fingerprinting studies as new taro lines become available to us, making this study more informative for breeding, taxonomy and evolutionary studies.