COMPARATIVE-ANALYSIS OF GENETIC DIVERSITY IN PEA ASSESSED BY RFLP-BASED AND PCR-BASED METHODS

DNA-based molecular-marker techniques have been proven powerful in gen etic diversity estimations. Among them, RFLP was the first and is stil l the most commonly used in the estimation of genetic diversity of euk aryotic species. The recently developed PCR-based multiple-loci marker techniques, which include RAPD, AFLP, Microsatellite-AFLP and inter-S SR PCR, are playing increasingly important roles in this type of resea rch. Despite the wide application of these techniques, no direct compa rison of these methods in the estimation of genetic diversity has been carried out. Here we report a direct comparison of DNA-based RFLP wit h various PCR-based techniques regarding their informativeness and app licability for genetic diversity analysis. Among ten pea genotypes stu died, all the PCR-based methods were much more informative than cDNA-R FLP. Genetic diversity trees were derived from each marker technique, and compared using Mantel's test. By this criterion, all trees derived from the various molecular marker techniques, except for the tree der ived from inter-SSR PCR, were significantly correlated, suggesting tha t these PCR-based techniques could replace RFLP in the estimation of g enetic diversity. On the basis of this result, AFLP analysis was appli ed to assess the genetic diversity of a sample of accessions represent ing the various species and subspecies within the genus Pisum.