Plant Tissue Culture and Molecular Markers

Tissue culture can be used to propagate elite material or to generate new variability by employing somaclonal variation. Genetic stability of the process must be evaluated analyzing DNA profiles by the use of molecular markers. Several techniques have been reported for the screening of genetic variation on tissue culture derived material; however, a highly informative and good relation among the time–cost–information is obtained using Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) in automatic sequencer. This technique involves a double-digestion of DNA with restriction enzymes, ligation of adapters at both extremities of the restriction fragments, and finally, selective polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the fragments. A semiautomatic process for the analysis could be used, but several considerations must be taken into account before such a use.