Analysis of DNA methylation patterns in potato somatic hybrids between Solanum tuberosum and S. etuberosum by molecular markers

Potato somatic hybrids between dihaploid Solanum tuberosum and S. etuberosum were used to investigate genetic changes and DNA methylation patterns might be induced during repeated tissue culture process. Twenty-six somatic hybrids mother plants and regenerants (30^th cycles sub-cultured plants) were examined by the DNA markers. Genetic changes were detected by ISSR and RAPD, whereas epigenetic changes were studied by methylation sensitive (MS)-ISSR and MS-RAPD markers. To detect genetic changes, no genetic variation was detected among the mother plants and the regeneratns by ISSR and RAPD markers. Whereas, total DNA methylation patterns in the somatic hybrids were detected from 0.7 to 5.34%, and 0.0 to 7.07%, by MS-ISSR and MS-RAPD markers, respectively. The study concluded that DNA methylation patterns (epigenetic changes), though it is very low, were induced in the somatic hybrids plants during the tissue culture process and detected by simple RAPD and ISSR based techniques.