Jatin Kumar
University of Delhi, India
Title: Screening of male and female plants and genetic diversity studies in Jojoba [Simmondsia chinensis (Link) Schneider] employing PCR based molecular markers.
Biography
Biography: Jatin Kumar
Abstract
Simmondsia chinensis (Jojoba), an economically important dioecious crop cultivated commercially for its seeds which contain oil (jojoba wax). This is a male biased crop mainly vegetatively propagated, as identification of sex of the seed raised plants is not possible prior flowering. Therefore, identification of female and male plants before flowering stage has been reckoned as a challenging problem in this crop. DNA fingerprinting studies were carried out on physiologically matured male and female Jojoba plants in order to develop sex linked markers. Three ISSR primers UBC-807, ISSR848 and VIS11 generated male sex specific bands of ~1200bp, ~1500 bp and ~1300 bp, respectively which were present in all the male genotypes only. UBC-8071200 and VIS111300 have been cloned, sequenced and successfully converted into sequence tagged sites (STS) markers which amplified bands of ~800 bp and ~584 bp respectively specific to males. One SRAP primer combination E10/M9 amplified a band of 400 bp specific to males. RAPD primer OPG-5 produced a 1,400 bp fragment specific to males. Assessment of the levels and patterns of genetic diversity is also very helpful for improvement of vegetatively cultivated crops. 15 SCoT and 17 CBDP markers were employed and found CBDP markers to more effective than SCoT marker in terms of percentage polymorphism, polymorphic information content (PIC) value and marker index (MI). Among females, genotype MS F was highly diverse and Q104 F and 82-18 F were least and among males, 32 M and MS M were most diverse while 58-5 M the least diverse.