DNA-BASED METHODS USED FOR VARIETAL PURITY DETECTION IN WHEAT CULTIVARS

Abstract

Wheat is a cereal that plays an important role in agriculture, for feed and human food. It is well known that the wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) has a large and complex genome (2n = 6x = 42 chromosomes) that makes difficult the genetic researches. Assessing genetic purity and varietal identification are important topics in wheat seed quality control. Several approaches that can be used to exploit new methods for genetic purity assessment and varietal identification of wheat are currently available in various international laboratories. Techniques based on morphological identification involve intense effort, making it sometimes difficult to verify crops varieties. Using molecular markers in order to determine the purity and variety identification of different seed types seems to be a better approach. Nowadays in the world there are numerous wheat varieties and cultivars with different properties. The molecular markers are not influenced by environment conditions and this makes them play an important role not only for seed purity evaluation but although for research purposes. Taking all that into consideration we can say that DNA-based methods using PCR technique are always useful tools to determine authenticity and purity not only for wheat varieties but for other crops. A better understanding of the factors controlling purity and varietal identification, as well as the effective utilization of new and developing genetics and genomics technologies, have great potential to improve the genetic purity assessment.