035 Effectiveness of RAPD Markers at Distinguishing Somaclonal Variants of Strawberry Derived from Meristem Tip Culture

Abstract

Commercial strawberry plantings in the mid-Atlantic region are often quickly infected with one or more aphid-transmitted viruses, resulting in the loss of plant vigor, stunting, lowered yields, etc. To produce virus-free plant material for the strawberry industry and for cultivar development programs, heat therapy and/or meristem tip culture protocols are generally employed. One of the problems associated with meristem culturing is the potential for somaclonal mutations to occur in the meristem or surrounding proliferating tissue. As a result, distinct “bud lines” displaying functionally insignificant to distressingly high levels of phenotypic variation can arise from individual meristems. It would be desirable to differentiate these off-types by genetic fingerprinting to maintain trueness-to-type. Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were evaluated for the potential to differentiate six pairs of strawberry bud lines that exhibit slight to fairly extreme levels of phenotypic variation. Reproducible RAPD marker profiles were generated using 10 primers in amplification reactions with genomic DNA obtained from multiple extractions. While five of the bud line pairs remained indistinguishable, three primers distinguished two variants of the Mohawk cultivar that are now in existence in the strawberry industry. Results suggest that typical somaclonal variation produced in the meristem culture process is of a magnitude that is not readily detectable with the RAPD protocol. The two Mohawk lines were probably produced by a higher magnitude mutation event than generally occurs or a cultivar mix-up.