IDENTIFICATION OF WILD AND CULTIVATED HORDEUM SPECIES USING 2-PRIMER RAPD FRAGMENTS

Random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPD) analysis has been adapted to assess the degree of RAPD polymorphism within the genus Hordeum to det ermine if this approach can distinguish wild and cultivated species. N ineteen wild and seven cultivated accessions were evaluated using 4 ra ndom 10-mer primers. The potential of the RAPD assay was further incre ased by combining two primers in a single polymerase chain reaction (P CR). RAPD fragments generated by two pairs of arbitrary 10-mer primers discriminated six wild species and one cultivated species by banding profiles. The size of the amplified DNA fragments ranged from 150 to 2 300 base pairs. 33 % percent of the fragments were common to both wild and cultivated species; 67 % were specific to either wild or cultivat ed species. The average difference in fragments was less within the sp ecies than among the species. By comparing RAPD fingerprints of wild a nd cultivated barley, markers were identified among the set of amplifi ed DNA fragments which could be used to distinguish wild and cultivate d Hordeum species.