Mitochondrial genome diversity among cultivars of daucus carota (ssp. sativus) and their wild relatives.

Restriction fragment patterns of mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) from 13 carrot cultivars (Daucus carota ssp. sativus), wild carrot (ssp. carota), ssp. gummifer, and D. capillifolius were compared with each other using four restriction endonucleases. The mtDNAs of the 13 carrot cultivars could be classified into three distinct types - I, II and III - and were also clearly distinguishable from the mtDNAs of wild carrot (type IV), gummifer (V) and D. capillifolius (VI). The proportions of common restriction fragments (F values) shared by two of the three mtDNA types (I, II and III) of carrot cultivars were approximately 0.5-0.6. The F values were 0.4-0.5 for mitochondrial genomes between wild carrot, ssp. gummifer and D. capillifolius. The mitochondrial genomes between wild carrot and the carrot cultivars showed closer homologies those between wild carrot, ssp. gummifer, and D. capillifolius. The diversity of the mitochondrial genomes among the carrot cultivars is too high to presume that it was generated from the cytoplasm of only one common ancestor during the relatively short history of carrot breeding. These results suggested that the three types of cytoplasms found in the carrot cultivars might have existed in a prototype of D. carota in pre-historical times.