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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Griffin, Georgia » Plant Genetic Resources Conservation Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #130999
Title: MICROSATELLITE BASED PATERNITY ANALYSIS IN POLYPLOID SWEETPOTATO

Author
item BUTERLER, M
item LABONTE, D.R.
item Jarret, Robert - Bob
item MACCHIAVELLI, R.E.

Submitted to: Industrial Crops and Products
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/1/2002
Publication Date: 12/1/2002
Citation: Buterler, M., Labonte, D., Jarret, R.L. Macchiavelli, R. Microsatellite based paternity analysis in polyploid sweetpotato. Industrial crops in products, 2002. J. ASHS 127:392-396.

Interpretive Summary: Sweet potato breeding is typically accomplished by intercrossing at random a large number of parental lines. Although the female parent of each hybridization event is readily determined during the harvest of the resultant seed, the male parent (pollen source) cannot be readily determined. In this article, DNA markers were used to identify the male parents of individuals that resulted from the open-pollination of a number of sweet potato lines. The ability to identify both the male and female parents of sweet potato offspring is expected to increase the efficiency of sweet potato breeding by allowing the identification of parents that produce clearly superior offspring.

Technical Abstract: Polymorphic microsatellite markers were utilized to conduct a paternity analysis of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) progeny obtained from polycross nursery. The female parent was readily identifiable at the time of seed harvest. However, the male parent was not known. Parental lines and offspring were analyzed using four previously characterized simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci. Paternity exclusion and most-likely parent analysis methods were evaluated to determine which was most effective in determining parentage. Paternity allocation by the most-likely parent method was more effective than the paternity exclusion method for assigning paternity to offspring. The conclusion is that paternity analysis using microsatellites is an effective means of assigning paternity to sweetpotato progeny and that ability to identify the paternal parents of offspring can be used to increase the efficiency of the breeding process.