Genetic stability of three economically important micropropagated banana (Musa spp.) cultivars of lower Indo-Gangetic plains, as assessed by RAPD and ISSR markers

An efficient micropropagation protocol produced large number of plants of the three elite banana (Musa spp.) cultivars Robusta (AAA), Giant Governor (AAA) and Martaman (AAB) from shoot tip meristem. The genetic relationships and fidelity among the cultivars and micropropagated plants as assessed by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers, revealed three somaclonal variants from Robusta and three from Giant Governor. A total of 5330 RAPD and 2741 ISSR fragments were generated with 21 RAPD and 12 ISSR primers in micropropagated plants. The percentage of polymorphic loci by RAPD and ISSR were found to be 1.75, 5.08 in Robusta and 0.83, 5.0 in Giant Governor respectively. Among the two marker systems used, ISSR fingerprinting detected more polymorphism than RAPD in Robusta and Giant Governor with most of the primers showing similar fingerprinting profile, whereas Martaman revealed complete genetic stability.