Use of RAPD for the study of diversity within plant germplasm collections.

As part of the development of a molecular toolkit for the study of diversity within large plant germplasm collections, RAPD technology has been applied to accessions of rice (Oryza sativa) obtained from the major world collection held at IRRI (the International Rice Research Institute) which supplies germplasm to breeders. Methods for the speedy extraction of DNA representative of a rice accession, its amplification by PCR to reveal reproducible products, and the analysis of the banding data using numerical techniques have been established. The biological meaningfulness of RAPD data has also been demonstrated by reference to previous work on classification and crossability.