Analysis of Genetic Stability of “in Vitro” Plants by Molecular Markers

Abstract

Conservation of endangered, rare, vulnerable or endemic plants became of great interest in the last years in order to preserve the natural resources. The most used protocols for plant conservation is ex situ conservation in botanical garden collections, or in vitro conservation by tissue culture. Both protocols require the previous analysis of the genetic variability in the populations because it is well known that endangered or endemic plants exhibit low level of genetic variation in their population (Hamrick et al., 1991). There are several examples of endangered, rare or endemic species with large populations, but individuals are genetically similar or identical. The low genetic diversity variation is due to clonal multiplication or bottlenecks. Thus, knowing the genetic structure and variability is useful before the development of proper conservation strategies. After conservation, the genetic stability of plants should be also investigated, because the success of any conservation method is to preserve populations but the genetic structure and variability as well. Molecular markers as SSR and ISSR are valuable tools for estimation the genetic variability in populations and genetic stability after conservation as well (Varshney et al., 2005).