Identification of Ethiopian Triticum aestivum, T. turgidum, and Eragrostis tef using morphological, SDS-PAGE and AFLP characterisation

[摘要] English: In this study, morphological, seed storage proteins, and AFLP markers were used toidentify and determine the genetic divergence among 20 Ethiopian wheat varieties. In thesame way, an attempt was also made to characterize 10 Ethiopian tef cultivars usingmorphological and AFLP markers. Seed storage proteins were not used to characterizethe tef cultivars, because it was already reported that the low number of protein markersdetected could not distinguish individual tef cultivars.The morphological traits have uniquely identified all the wheat and tef accessions,although it is found that morphological distances are not accurate estimate of geneticdistances owing to their limited number and environmental interaction. Thus, resultsobtained from morphological data have to be confirmed by biochemical or DNAmarkers, depending on the need of identification.From the protein markers, the gliadins uniquely distinguished all the individual wheataccessions. Thus, gliadins can be effectively used to discriminate wheat cultivars.However, some of the wheat cultivars had the same HMW-GS banding patterns, andtherefore, HMW -GS should not be used for cultivar identification. The HMW -GS canrather be used to determine quality characteristics. In general, compared tomorphological markers, protein markers are more reliable as the effect of environmentalinfluence is absent or minimal. The limitation with the protein markers is that only partof the genome that codes for a specific protein can be detected.With the AFLP markers, more variations were detected among the wheat entries, due tothe potential of the AFLP markers to survey the entire genome and also due to the largernumber of loci assayed. Thus, AFLP markers are more reliable and hence they can beused to supplement and refine morphological- and protein-based classifications.

[发布机构] University of the Free State