Amplification of genomic DNA of arbuscular-mycorrhizal (AM) fungi by PCR using short arbitrary primers

Genomic DNA of arbuscular-mycorrhizal fungi extracted from spores was amplified with short arbitrary primers. DNA from a single-spore preparation of Glomus versiforme and Gigaspora margarita provided enough material for 30 and 120 amplification reactions, respectively. Depending on the DNA template-primer combination, 1–14 amplified fragments could be separated electrophoretically. The analysis of the banding patterns of amplification products derived from different fungal isolates defined a gradient in similarity. Amplified DNA fragments of the same size were shared 9–29% in spores of different species, 44–64% in spores of two isolates of the same species from different geographical regions, 60–76% in spores of two isolates of the same species from close geographical regions and 77–89% in spores of different lines of the same isolate. This experimental approach, based on random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), can lead to the development of specific probes for studying biodiversity in arbuscular-mycorrhizal fungi.