Genetic And Epigenetic Diversity Among A Set Of Maize Inbred Lines

DNA methylation as an important epigenetic modification plays an important role in controlling gene expression and maintaining genomic stability in animals and plants. It has been well documented that disturbance of intrinsic DNA methylation patterns may lead to functional and phenotypic abnormality, but also evolutionary opportunity. On the other hand the inheritance of specific methylation pattern in animals and plants, and variation of methylation induced by biotic or abiotic factors may provide novel insight into the biological significance of this epigenetic marker.In order to explore the distribution and the genetic regulation of cytosine methylation, we investigate the extent and pattern of genetic differentiation among 24 maize inbred lines by amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP). Results showed that based on the AFLP data, the 24 inbred lines can be divided into several group, though the differentiation between each other is not statistically significant. We analyzed the various correlations of the AFLP and MSAP data including methylate sensitive polymorphism_MSP and methylate insensitive polymorphism (MISP), the correlation of MSP and AFLP and the correlation of MISP and AFLP, and found out that none of the correlations was significant.Taken together, it can be concluded that the DNA methylation level and patterns among the 24 maize inbred lines are not corelated to their genetic-relationships, or kinship, suggesting independency of epigentetic markers in maize.