Development of amplified consensus genetic markers (ACGM) in Brassica napus from Arabidopsis thaliana sequences of known biological function

A method for the development of consensus genetic markers between species o f the same taxonomic family is described in this paper. It is based on the conservation of the peptide sequences and on the potential polymorphism wit hin non-coding sequences. Six loci sequenced from Arabidopsis thaliana, AG, LFY3, AP3, FAD7, FAD3, and ADH, were analysed for one ecotype of A. thalia na, four lines of Brassica napus, and one line for each parental species, B rassica oleracea and Brassica rapa. Positive amplifications with the degene rate primers showed one band for A. thaliana, two to four bands in rapeseed , and one to two bands in the parental species. Direct sequencing of the PC R products confirms their peptide similarity with the "mother" sequence. By comparison of intron sequences, the correspondence between each rapeseed g ene and its homologue in one of the parental species can be determined with out ambiguity. Another important result is the presence of a polymorphism i nside these fragments between the rapeseed lines. This variability could ge nerally be detected by differences of electrophoretic migration on long non denaturing polyacrylamide gels. This method enables a quick and easy shuttl e between A. thaliana and Brassica species without cloning.