AFLP genotyping and fingerprinting

Amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) are polymerase chain reacti on (PCR)-based markers for the rapid screening of genetic diversity, AFLP m ethods rapidly generate hundreds of highly replicable markers from DNA of a ny organism; thus, they allow high-resolution genotyping of fingerprinting quality. The time and cost efficiency, replicability and resolution of AFLP s are superior or equal to those of other markers [allozymes, random amplif ied polymorphic DNA (RAPD), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) , microsatellites], except that AFLP methods primarily generate dominant ra ther than co-dominant markers. Because of their high replicability and ease of use, AFLP markers have emerged as a major new type of genetic marker wi th broad application in systematics, pathotyping population genetics, DNA f ingerprinting and quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping.