Sweetpotato Genome Fingerprinting and Parental Analysis Using Microsatellites.
Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were used to characterize 20 sweetpotato genotypes and to assign paternity for offspring from crosses among them. The PCR amplifications were performed with each of the sweetpotato genotypes and primers flanking a SSR loci previously characterized with the varieties Beauregard and Excel and 20 offspring from a cross among them. The PCR reaction products were separated in nondenaturing 12% acrylamide gels run at 25 V·cm–1 for 5 hours, and DNA fragments were visualized with silver staining. Gels were scanned on a flat bed scanner and analyzed using the Pro-RFLP software package. Three primer pairs were sufficient to produce an allelic profile capable of differentiating the 20 genotypes from each other. More than seven alleles/loci were found using each of the three primer pairs assayed. Occasionally primers produced allelic products clearly localized in two or three regions of the gel. These multiple loci segregated independently in a diploid fashion. This evidence suggests that there is not total homology among the three sweetpotato genomes.