Search

Among different types of potato cytoplasmic genomes, some are associated with male sterility or affect agronomic traits. The goal of this study was to analyze types of chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes of selected potato relatives originating from collection of the Institute of Plant Industry, Saint Petersburg, Russia, and preserved in Poland. Using chloroplast and mitochondrial markers the cytoplasm types were determined for 401 genotypes belonging to 43 seed accessions of 28 Solanum species. Among characterized genotypes, 201 (50.1%), 156 (38.9%) and 44 (11%) had cytoplasm types W, D, M, respectively. No accessions with the T, P or A cytoplasm were found. Within cytoplasm W, genotypes with the subtypes: W/α and W/β were identified, but not with W/γ. In S. famatinae, we detected unusual product of the T marker with 65 bp insertion earlier seen exclusively in S. vernei. Among the genotypes of S. leptophyes, two profiles of the ALM_4/ALM_5 marker were observed. S. famatinae and S. vernei come from Argentina, provinces Catamarca and Tucumán. Possibly the insertion in marker T occurred independently in two species, or the accessions were misidentified. Segregation of the ALM_4/ALM_5 marker within S. leptophyes indicates that potato seed accessions are heterogeneous not only due to nuclear DNA polymorphisms but have diversified cytoplasm, too. Our findings are important for exploitation of the tested material in potato breeding. Male-fertile cytoplasm types give a chance of avoiding fertility problems and widening the range of crosses in future generations of breeding materials.

We applied the RFLP approach to identify the cytoplasmic genotypes of selected onion breeding materials from Poland. For this purpose, mitochondrial DNA from cytoplasmic male-sterile (CMS) and male-fertile onions were hybridized with the probes for the following mitochondrial genes: atpA, atp6, atp9, cob, cox1, nad3, nad4 and nad6. S-, T- or C-cytoplasm was represented in each analyzed sterile accession. Some new polymorphisms shared by S- and C-cytoplasmic onions were identified. We also used currently available PCR markers to test if cytoplasmic heterogenity occurs within onion inbreds. A fraction of the plants bearing S-cytoplasm were found within two male-fertile lines, but such plants were not detected in the open-pollinated cultivars Sochaczewska, Wolska and Zytawska. Both the RFLP and PCR approaches gave some proof of existing mitochondrial heteroplasmy in onions