Start codon targeted polymorphism for evaluation of functional genetic variation and relationships in cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) genotypes

Cultivated peanut possesses an extremely narrow genetic basis. Polymorphism is considerably difficult to identify with the use of conventional biochemical and molecular tools. For the purpose of obtaining considerable DNA polymorphisms and fingerprinting cultivated peanut genotypes in a convenient manner, start codon targeted polymorphism technique was used to study genetic diversity and relatedness among 20 accessions of four major botanical varieties of peanut. Of 36 primers screened, 18 primers could produce unambiguous and reproducible bands. All 18 primers generated a total of 157 fragments, with a mean of 8.72 ranging from 4 to 17 per primer. Of 157 bands, 60 (38.22%) were polymorphic. One to seven polymorphic bands were amplified per primer, with 3.33 polymorphic bands on average. Polymorphism per primer ranged from 14.29 to 66.67%, with an average of 36.76%. The results revealed that not all accessions of the same variety were grouped together and high genetic similarity was detected among the tested genotypes based on cluster analysis and genetic distance analysis, respectively. Further, accession-specific markers were observed in several accessions. All these results demonstrated the following: (1) start codon targeted polymorphism technique can be utilized to identify DNA polymorphisms and fingerprint cultivars in domesticated peanut, and (2) it possesses considerable potential for studying genetic diversity and relationships among peanut accessions.