Estimation of genetic variation among Verticillium isolates using AFLP analysis

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis was used to study genetic variation among 76 isolates of Verticillium. A dendrogram based on the AFLP data revealed three main groups. One group consisted of 35 European isolates derived from Brassica napus together with five Californian isolates taken from B. oleracea. This group displayed a high degree of genetic similarity and included three isolates earlier classified as Verticillium longisporum, indicating that all isolates in this group probably should be regarded as members of V. longisporum. V. dahliae isolates constituted the second group while the third group contained four V. albo-atrum isolates. In addition to these three groups, a cluster of six V. nigrescens isolates was observed. However, the genetic distances between the isolates of V. nigrescens were much higher than those between members in the other groups and the bootstrap value for the V. nigrescens cluster was subsequently low. Four isolates classified as V. tricorpus were highly diverse and did not cluster together. Analysis of molecular variance revealed that the isolates of V. longisporum were separated into four subgroups, based on geographic origin. The study furthermore shows that AFLP is a suitable method for studying population structure in Verticillium.