Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) Polymorphism and Its Application in Mulberry Genome Analysis

Abstract

SeriBiotech Research Laboratory, Central Silk Board, Kodathi, Carmelram Post, Bangalore-560035, India.(Received 31 January 2005; Accepted 1 April 2005)Molecular markers have increasingly been used inplant genetic analysis, due to their obvious advantagesover conventional phenotypic markers, as they arehighly polymorphic, more in number, stable across dif-ferent developmental stages, neutral to selection andleast influenced by environmental factors. Among thePCR based marker techniques, ISSR is one of the sim-plest and widely used techniques, which involvesamplification of DNA segment present at an amplifi-able distance in between two identical microsatelliterepeat regions oriented in opposite direction. ThoughISSR markers are dominant like RAPD, they are morestable and reproducible. Because of these propertiesISSR markers have recently been found using exten-sively for finger printing, pohylogenetic analysis, pop-ulation structure analysis, varietal/line identification,genetic mapping, marker-assisted selection, etc. Inmulberry (Morus spp.), ISSR markers were used foranalyzing phylogenetic relationship among cultivatedvarieties, between tropical and temperate mulberry,for solving the vexed problem of identifying taxonomicpositions of genotypes, for identifying markers associ-ated with leaf yield attributing characters. As ISSRmarkers are one of the cheapest and easiest markersystems with high efficiency in generating polymor-phism among closely related varieties, they would playa major role in mulberry genome analysis in thefuture. Key words: Molecular markers, PCR, Primers, Geneticdiversity, Phylogenetic relationship