Assessment of somaclonal variation in asparagus by RAPD fingerprinting and cytogenetic analyses

RAPD and cytogenetic analyses were carried out to detect somaclonal variation in somatic embryo-derived plants from two elite genotypes ('265' and '357') of Asparagus officinalis L. cv. Argenteuil. These two approaches were chosen for their capacity to detect, respectively, changes at the level of DNA sequence or chromosomal structure. Seventy-seven plants regenerated from three embryogenic lines ('265-1', '265-2' and '357-1') exhibited no intraclonal variation for 157 RAPD markers, even though two plants from line '357-1' presented dwarf phenotypes. Cytogenetic analyses revealed that the dwarf plants were mixoploid; two other, phenotypically normal plants from line '357-1' were aneuploids and presented many meiotic irregularities. The remaining regenerants from this and the other lines were genetically stable with regard to the donor plants. Molecular markers and cytogenetic analysis are complementary approaches that should allow a correct assessment of somaclonal variation in asparagus. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.