Abundance and polymorphism of simple repetitive DNA sequences in Bmssica napus L.

The Brassica napus genome has been investigated by DNA fingerprinting with six synthetic oligonucleotide probes complementary to simple repetitive sequences, namely (GATA)4, (GACA)4, (GGAT)4, (CA)8, (CT)8 and (GTG)5. While all sequence motifs were found to be present in the B. napus genome, their organization and abundance varied considerably. Among the investigated probes, (GATA)4 revealed the highest level of intraspecific polymorphism and distinguishes not only between cultivars but even between different individuals belonging to the same cultivar. In contrast, (GTG)5, (GACA)4 and (GGAT)4 produced relatively homogeneous fingerprint patterns throughout different cultivars, while hybridization to (CT)8 and (CA)8 resulted in only a few weak bands superimposed on a smear. The isoschizomeric pair Hpa II and Msp I revealed the presence of methylated cytosines in the vicinity of (GATA)m repeats. The applicability of simple repetitive sequence polymorphisms as molecular markers for Brassica species is discussed.