Genetic and geographic polymorphism of cultivated tobaccos (Nicotiana tabacum) in Turkey

Nicotiana tabacum (2n = 48) is a natural amphidiploid and shows a distribution over a geographical area in eastern anatolia. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique was used to evaluate both genetic diversity among 21 primitive tobacco accessions comparing flue cure virginia genotype (FCV) and their geographical polymorphism as a source of genetic variations for breeding programs. Only 13 of all the 60 random primers used in RAPD showed polymorphism acceptable for characterization of these accessions. Totally 118 RAPD fragments were generated from thirteen decamer primer and sixtyfour of them were found polymorphic (54.2%). Mus and FCV showed the smallest genetic distance among accessions cultivated in the eastern anatolia. These results shows that the RAPD assay is a powerful approach for identifying genetic and geographic polymorphism.