Oligonucleotide fingerprinting reveals various probe-dependent levels of informativeness in chickpea (Cicer arietinum)

Abstract

Synthetic oligonucleotides complementary to simple repetitive DNA sequences were used to detect inter- and intra-specific polymorphisms in a leguminous crop plant (chickpea, Cicer arietinum) and its wild relatives. All the investigated repetitive motifs [(GACA)4, (GATA)4, (GTG)5, (CA)8, (TCC)5, (GGAT)4, and (AGTTT)4] were abundantly present and polymorphic in the chickpea genome. Different probes revealed different levels of variability. Whereas species-specific banding patterns were obtained with the (GTG)5 probe, other probes revealed differences between accessions, or even individuals. The somatic multilocus patterns were stable for all probes.