Analysis of AFLP Variation of Taro Population and Markers Associated with Leaf Blight Resistance Gene

The development of molecular techniques, in particular the use of molecular markers have been used to identify markers linked to useful traits and made great advances in recent years. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis was used to analyze the geographical differentiation, phylogenetic relationships and to identify molecular markers linked to taro leaf blight resistance genes of Indian taro. The significant differentiations in Indian taro cultivars were clearly demonstrated by AFLP marker. Results showed that AFLP can be used to distinguish taro cultivars by their unique and different banding patterns. Unweighted Pair Group Method using Arithmetic Averages (UPGMA) permitted cluster analysis of AFLP data, which showed that closely related cultivars collected from same geographical area can clearly be differentiated and that genetic difference between cultivars can also be established. It appears from the study that when taro cultivation was introduced to a new area, only a small fraction of genetic variability in heterogeneous taro populations was transferred possibly causing random differentiation among locally adapted taro populations. AFLP markers linked to the leaf blight resistance gene was identified. The results of the biological evaluation and molecular characterization generated by this approach may provide starting points for map-based cloning of this important gene.