DNA Variations between Medicago truncatula Symbiotic Mutant Line and Native Variant Using Fluorescence-Based AFLP Marker

Genetic mutagenesis is a very efficient tool in studying genes function. Because of the great benefits of legumes as human food and animal feed worldwide, we used a model plant Medicago truncatula for identification gene function related to nitrogen fixation process. Our mutant is a Medicago mutant line contains a tobacco Tnt 1 retro-transposon mobile element with the two Long Terminal Repeats (LTR) inserted within the genome. Our mutant is predicted to contain a mutation in gene/s belonging to symbiotic interaction between legume and rhizobia. A novel technique was used based on using fluorescent oligonucleotide primers against oligonucleotide primers for Tnt 1-LTRs of our mutant. This novel protocol was very successful in detecting the polymorphism between our mutant line and the wild variant R108 using Biosystems 310 Genetic Analyzer. Electropherograms of the mutant line and wild type gave a total of 561 well- resolved AFLP peaks, 357of which were polymorphic peaks and 204 were monomorphic peaks. This novel technique enables the calculation percentage of polymorphism between the mutant line and the wild type. Additionally, primers combinations amplified more bands from others to detect polymorphism between the plants