Genetic Diversity Between and Within Opuntia Spp. Species Revealed by Molecular Marker Issr.

Opuntia fodder palm spp. , constitutes a viable solution for animal feeding in arid and semi-arid regions due to its easy adaptation to this type of environment, its physiological characteristics and low production cost. Given its importance, it is essential to know more about its genetic characteristics. One of the most used techniques is molecular markers. Within this context, the objective of this work was to evaluate the genetic diversity of 40 Opuntia genotypes spp. from the Active Germplasm Bank-BAG of the National Semiarid Institute-INSA, using Inter Simple molecular markers Sequence Repeats - ISSR. Extraction of Deoxyribonucleic Acid - DNA from the accessions was carried out using the DNeasy Plant Mini® Kit ( Qiagen ). 11 ISSR oligonucleotide primers ( primers ) were used. With this technique, 839 fragments were amplified, distributed across 91 loci. From the genetic distances of the 40 accessions, nine groups were constructed. It was found that there is high genetic diversity between and within the species evaluated, contributing to expanding the genetic base of segregating populations. It is suggested intraspecific crossing between accessions 87 and 117 and interspecific crossing with accessions 1 x 119, 86 x ? (101), 86 x 135, 88 x 135, ?(101) x 135.