Application of molecular methods in weed science

Abstract

Molecular methods are useful tools for weed science, especially in the area of weed resistance to herbicides and gene flow from herbicide tolerant crops to their wild relatives. Also, genetic variability plays an important role in weed susceptibility to herbicides and affect on strategies of control. For all of these studies, DNA, as a starting material, could be extracted by various methods; though, the easiest and the most suitable is extraction by using commercially available kits. The most important part of molecular analysis is selection and design of adequate primers for successful DNA amplification. Usually, primer selection and designing are based on DNA sequences stored in GenBank. Analysis following selected DNA fragments will depend on type of research. For weed resistance or gene flow studies, amplified fragments are sequenced and obtained information compared with the GenBank sequence database, with the aim to check for mutation(s) presence. For genetic diversity of weed species analysis of amplified DNA fragments include Capillary Electrophoresis.