Proceedings of the XLVI Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Giardini Naxos, Italy - 18/21 September, 2002

ISBN 88-900622-3-1

Poster Abstract - 4.54

AFLP FINGERPRINTING IN ARGYRANTHEMUM FRUTESCENS (MARGUERITE DAISY)

DOVERI S.*, LEE D.*, MORREALE G.**, BERIO T.**, ALLAVENA A.**, VENTURO R.***

*) NIAB Huntingdon Road Cambridge CB3 0LE UK

**) Istituto Sperimentale Floricoltura, Corso Inglesi 508, 18038 Sanremo (IM), Italy
propagazione@istflori.it

***) Istituto Regionale Floricoltura, Via Carducci 12, 18038 Sanremo (IM), Italy
venturo@regflor.it

Argyranthemum frutescens, AFLP, molecular marker

Argyranthemum frutescens (Asteraceae family) well-know as "Marguerite daisy" is cultivated by the florists either as a cut flower or as a flowering spot plant. Marguerite daisy breeding takes place all over the world. At present, many Marguerite daisy cultivars are available and most of these derive either by open or by controlled pollination. Selected genotypes are multiplied by cuttings. The propagation system provides the opportunity to identify sports which are likely derived by either spontaneous mutation or by chimeral rearrangement. The objective of this work is to develop a molecular marker technique in Argyranthemum to measure the degree of relatedness between genotypes and to assess essential derivation. AFLP fingerprinting were used for this study, because the technology provides the high discriminatory power needed to assess distinctness between sports and mutants. AFLP can be applied to species for which no or little sequence information is available, and in those cases where a high Marker Index is requested from the marker technology. In the first part of the work we optimised AFLP techniques in daisy marguerite, selecting the most efficient combinations of selective primers. Following the optimisation phase, fingerprinting was performed on a suitable and carefully chosen set of materials comprising sports, mutants, closely and distantly related varieties. (a questo punto dovresti aggiungere qualche dato preliminare; ad esempio il numero di basi selettive nella seconda mplificazione ed altro di cui disponi). The work is expected to deliver a reliable AFLP method for Argyranthemum, suitable for Distinctness, Uniformity, Stability studies, which will facilitate the assessment of genetic distances between cultivars. The method could also be used for developing an AFLP-based genetic map in this species.