DNA PROFILING OF BANANA AND PLANTAIN CULTIVARS USING RANDOM AMPLIFIEDPOLYMORPHIC DNA (RAPD) AND RESTRICTION-FRAGMENT-LENGTH-POLYMORPHISM (RFLP) MARKERS

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of genomic DNA from 57 M usa cultivars with 60 random 10-mer primers generated 605 polymorphic amplification products which were useful in unambiguous cultivar ident ifications. Unweighted pair-group method analysis of this data grouped the cultivars into specific clusters depending on their genomic simil arities. The diploid ancestral species of cultivated banana and planta ins, namely Musa acuminata ssp malaccensis, an A genome donor and M. b albisiana, a B genome donor, were farthest apart from each other in th e phenogram. The edible fruit yielding cultivars with the genomic cons titutions AA, AAA, AB, AAB, ABB and ABBE grouped in different clusters according to overall genetic homologies. The restriction fragment len gth polymorphisms (RFLPs) prevalent among the cultivars were studied b y hybridizations of 19 random genomic clones to blots of HindIII, EcoR I and MspI digests. Cluster analysis of these data on 107 polymorphic alleles resulted in a phenogram comparable to the one obtained with ra ndom amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. Two multilocus probes useful in distinguishing all the 57 cultivars analyzed were also ident ified. The A and B types of cytoplasms in the cultivars were further d istinguished by hybridization of heterologous chloroplast DNA probes. Results showed that use of different kinds of molecular markers in gen e banks is essential for characterization and classification of germpl asm collections.