COMPARATIVE GENETIC DIVERSITY STUDIES OF THEOBROMA-CACAO L USING RFLP AND RAPD MARKERS

The genetic diversity of 106 genotypes of Theobroma cacao L. was assessed using RFLP and RAPD methods. Thirty-one cDNA probes and 19 primers generated, respectively, 87 and 49 polymorphic bands that were submitted to factorial and cluster analyses. Both RFLP and RAPD bands separated the individuals into three distinctive groups. Some genotypes did not correspond to the currently accepted classification and are considered to have been originally misclassified. The nature of RAPD bands was investigated by Southern analysis. There were as many highly repeated sequences as single copy sequences but the two types of sequences did not structure the variability in the same way. Similar results were obtained with RFLPs and RAPDs with regard to the genetic structure of Theobroma cacao L. Therefore, RAPDs appear to be as efficient as RFLPs for classifying cocoa genotypes.