RAPD Profiling of Three Japanese Drosera Species

Abstract

RAPD analysis was carried out using 1200 decamer random sequences to clarify the whole fingerprint of DNA fragment appearance patterns among three Japanese Drosera species: D. tokaiensis, D. rotundifolia and D. spatulata. The RAPD analysis results showed that D. tokaiensis had not only magnificent bands common to other two species, but also many specific bands, although D. tokaiensis is of amphiploidal origin between D. rotundifolia and D. spatulata. The specific bands of D. tokaiensis might generate after the speciation or amphiduplication. Therefore, the relationship of genome compositions among the three species suggested that RAPD fragments were preferentially amplified from 20 middle-sized chromosomes in D. rotundifolia and D. tokaiensis. Thus, the chromosome information and the RAPD profiling suggested that alloploidal genome formation during Drosera speciation might obtain new beneficial genetic characters to survive and adapt to certain environments.