Screening of resistance genes to fusarium root rot and fusarium wilt diseases in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) cultivars using RAPD and CAPs markers

Fusarium diseases inhabit most tomato-growing regions worldwide, causing tomato production yield losses. The best way to produce tomato is developing resistant cultivars against Fusarium species. Molecular marker linked to resistance gene would be useful for tomato improvement programmes. In this study RAPD and cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (CAPS) markers were used to screen tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) lines against resistance genes Frl and I-2, respectively. To understand better the genotypic structure whether they are homozygous or heterozygous, further analysis was carried out by digestion of the PCR products with Fok I and Rsa I restriction endonuclease. An Rsa I-digested fragment of 500 bp and two restriction fragments of 390 and 410 bp for Fok I digestion of TAO1902 were revealed in the homozygous resistant plants Results showed that out of 27 tomato cultivars, 14 were resistant, and 13 were susceptible to fusarium wilt and 20 resistant and 7 susceptible to Fusarium root rot, respectively. These results were confirmed with pathgenesity test