Abstract
In garlic, molecular markers associated with the trait of pollen fertility were searched, using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). Twelve pollen fertile and sterile garlic clones were screened, using 60 RAPD primers to find the DNA fragments related to pollen fertility. With the 60 arbitrary 10-mer primers, 625 discrete fragments of DNA were amplified, and 397 (64%) of them showed polymorphisms among the 12 clones. Two RAPD markers, OPJ121300 and OPJ121700 were amplified only in the pollen fertile clones with the primer OPJ12 (5'-GTCCCGTGGT-3'). The selected primers were tested on 60 pollen fertile and sterile garlic clones. The two RAPD markers were present commonly in all of the 31 pollen fertile clones, and they were not amplified in the 29 sterile clones with the exception of one, No. 395-2 which produces sterile pollen. The two RAPD markers were related to the pollen fertility of male organ, but the female fertility was not confirmed in this clone yet. The first step towdrds marker-assisted selection of fertile clones of garlic was made in this study.
