Abstract
The genus Opuntia belongs to the family Cactaceae, subfamily Opuntioideae, tribe Opuntieae. Many Opuntia is found on roadsides and routes due to usual ruderal behavior and it is planted for nourishment fruit production and border formation. The plant genetic background of any species plays an essential role in the improvement of plants by enriching the germplasm with a big pool of genetic variation for the breeders to create new cultivars. For many years Opuntia taxonomy was based on the morphological description and subsequently enriched with biochemical, physiological, and cytogenetic parameters. Molecular markers are widely used and overcome problems associated with genetic variation, genome mapping, phylogenetic, and evolutionary studies. Opuntia spp. has some individualities regarding molecular marker investigation, such as polysaccharides content and secondary metabolites, which makes DNA isolation extremely difficult. Besides, the ploidy level among Opuntia spp. cause several problems in the analysis of codominant markers. The polyploidy level in Opuntia can range from triploid (2n = 3x = 33) to octoploid (2n = 8x = 88). The ploidy level of Opuntia spp. depends on the population’s origin. Opuntia spp. cultivated in regions that differ from the origin present a lower genetic diversity than that of the areas of origin. Due to the presence of cleistogamy (self-fertilization) and polyembryony and the lack of rain and low temperature, seed germination is difficult, which makes the extent of genetic diversity limited. To increase the genetic variability among Opuntia populations, it requires introducing germplasm and landraces from the center of origin and domestication besides adding different genotypes from other regions.
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- cpSSR:
-
Chloroplast simple sequence repeats
- GA:
-
Gibberellic acid
- ISSR:
-
Inter-simple sequence repeats
- nuSSR:
-
Nuclear microsatellite
- PCR:
-
Polymerase chain reaction
- QTL:
-
Quantitative trait locus
- RAPD:
-
Random amplified polymorphic DNA
- RFLP:
-
Restriction fragment length polymorphism
- SSR:
-
Simple sequence repeats
- UPGMA:
-
Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean
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Omar, A.A., ElSayed, A.I., Mohamed, A.H. (2021). Genetic Diversity and Ecotypes of Opuntia spp.. In: Ramadan, M.F., Ayoub, T.E.M., Rohn, S. (eds) Opuntia spp.: Chemistry, Bioactivity and Industrial Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78444-7_8
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