EVALUATION OF THE GENETIC VARIABILITY CORRELATED WITH MULTILEAFLET TRAIT IN ALFALFA

摘要

The multileaflet trait on alfalfa determine high biomass and increased protein content, therefore the understanding ofthe metabolic pathway controlling this trait it is of great importance. Different mechanisms were already described, butnone of them give a complete explanation for this phenotype. The aim of our work was to evaluate the geneticvariability for 8 different plants, both tri and multileaflet ones, originated from MF 42-96 alfalfa synthetic linedeveloped by ICDA Fundulea and wild-type cultivated alfalfa, based on ISSR (Inter Simple Sequence Repeat) markers.Eight ISSR markers were selected from a collection of 20 primers, due to their high polymorphism among the analyzedsamples. All the primers generated 157 fragments of which 122 (77.7%) were polymorphic. The evaluation with theUPGMA (unweighted pair-group method) clustering method generated information regarding variability and thedendrogram. The determined similarities coefficients range between 0.44 and 0.64, pointing out a medium variabilitybetween samples, with no correlation between phenotypes. In the same clusters were present both tri and multileafletplants. However, seven polymorphic fragments were identified, present only in multileaflet individuals fingerprints, butabsent for all the trileaflet ones. These fragments could be possible candidates to develop a microsatelite markerslinked with the multileaflet phenotype on alfalfa.