Abstract:
Hevea brasiliensis (Willd. ex A. Juss.) Muell. Arg. is the main species
producing natural rubber, which is an important industrial raw material.
Rubber Elongation Factor (Ref) is a major protein, which involves in rubber
biosynthesis. Ref protein is highly homologous to the Ref gene. This
research was conducted to analyse the nucleotide sequences of the Ref gene
and Ref promoter of seven genotypes of year 2011 in a hand pollinated
progeny (HP-42, HP-231, HP-202, HP-300- high-yielding, HP-19, HP-124
and HP-297 low-yielding), along with the selected five wild accessions (RO
22/63, MT 11-76-I, MT 11-76-II, MT 11-13 and MT 10-146) of H.
brasiliensis to develop a molecular marker to early identification of highyielding
genotypes. Already characterized, four H. brasiliensis clones
(high-yielding and low-yielding Wickham genetic base) were used as
controls for the analysis. PCR amplification of genomic DNA of all
experimental materials resulted around 1250 bp fragment with Ref gene
specific primer pair and around 700 bp fragment with both Ref promoterspecific
primer pairs. No difference in base sequence was observed among
high and low yielding clones, genotypes and wild accessions. Therefore,
sequencing analysis of the Ref gene and Ref promoter showed the similar
sequence in both low and high yielding clones. Sequence analysis should be
carried out further for different regions of other genes of H. brasiliensis.
