ASSESSING GENETIC DIVERSITY OF SOME POTATO (Solanum tuberosum L.) GENOTYPES GROWN IN TURKEY USING THE AFLP MARKER TECHNIQUE

In the present study, the level of polymorphism and the genetic relationships among 26 potato genotypes were studied by means of molecular markers using the amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique. DNA was extracted from fresh leaves of the seedlings. Selective amplification products revealed a total of 191 polymorphic bands ranging from 8 to 45 for each combination. Scoring results were used to generate a tree in,IMP software. The 26 samples formed six clades with varying number of members between one and eleven. Genetic distances among genotypes were calculated according to Jaccard's formula, in Phylip 3.0 software. According to the results of genetic distance, dendrogram showed that genotypes 6/7-4 and 6/7-2 were the closest genotypes with a genetic distance of 0.13. On the other hand, genotypes Posof-10 and Marabel were the most distinct from each other with a genetic distance value of 0.55. The AFLP marker results showed a great consistency along with their pedigrees indicating the AFLP technique as a useful tool in the calculation of genetic distance of the potato genotypes.