1022-7954/04/4002- © 2004 MAIK “Nauka /Interperiodica” 0165 Russian Journal of Genetics, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2004, pp. 165–171. Translated from Genetika, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2004, pp. 224–231. Original Russian Text Copyright © 2004 by Seitova, Ignatov, Suprunova, Tsvetkov, Deineko, Dorokhov, Shumnyi, Skryabin. INTRODUCTION Studying genetic variation of wild plants is one of the important issues in biology. Intraspecific diversity reflecting the relationships between the genetic resources of a species and environmental factors at the same time measures evolutionary stability species [1]. Wild soybean (Glycine soja Sieb. et Zucc.) is among the species that are poorly studied with regard to their intraspecific variability despite the fact that this species is thought to be a progenitor of cultivated soybean Gly- cine max (L.) Merrill [2, 3]. Analysis of DNA polymor- phism showed that 85% of the observed genetic variation of the soybean cultivars of the North American origin is determined by the differences between 16 accessions introduced from the Far East region at the turn of the 20th century [4]. The soybean cultivars, as well as wild populations, are characterized by low variability of morphological and genetic characters [4–6], caused by self-pollina- tion. In these plants, cross-pollination usually consti- tutes less than 1% [4]. The search for polymorphic soy- bean DNA sequences using RFLP, RAPD, and AFLP techniques revealed about 0.5 polymorphic DNA frag- ments per probe (RFLP), 0.7 fragments per primer (RAPD), and up to 5.6 fragments per the pair of primers (AFLP) [7]. Using ISSR markers, from 5 to 16 poly- morphic amplicons per primer were detected in the genotypes of cultivated and wild soybean [8]. The high- est variability level was detected in SSR loci examined in 94 accessions of cultivated and wild soybean. The number of alleles found at 5 microsatellite loci varied from 5 to 21. Usually, two most frequent alleles of each locus were found in 51 to 87% of accessions, whereas the frequency of other alleles constituted about 0.10%. Among 79 SSR alleles, 16 were found in both culti- vated and wild soybean, 10 were observed only in cul- tivated soybean, and 53 alleles were specific for wild soybean [9]. Analysis of the DNA markers clearly showed that wild soybean had considerably higher polymorphism, compared to cultivated soybean, judging both by the number of allelic variants at each locus and by the het- erozygosity of the accessions. Some alleles are typical of cultivated soybean, but are rarely observed in wild plants. This finding points to the relative narrowness of the gene pool of wild soybean, which was used in domestication of this plant [9]. Using RAPD profiles of mitochondrial and chloro- plast DNA from wild and cultivated soybean acces- sions, four mtDNA groups were identified in wild soy- bean from the Far East [10]. Based on isoenzymes as genetic markers, Glazko [11] reported higher polymorphism of cultivated soy- bean compared to the wild species [11]. The author explained these data as reflecting the process of soy- bean domestication. Note, however, that the wild soy- bean accessions examined were collected in one geo- graphical region (Amur oblast), located at the periphery of the broad soybean geographical range. The species diagnostics is considerably improved by using a number of methods, including the analysis of ecocoenotic distribution as well as morphological, cytological, and molecular analyses [1]. As far as we know, special investigations estimating the participa- tion of wild soybean in the grass cover of the Far East region studying the changes of the chromosome num- ber and analyzing morphological and molecular char- acters within the species have not been performed. The ecological and coenotic characteristics of the distribu- Genetic Variation of Wild Soybean Glycine soja Sieb. et Zucc. in the Far East Region of the Russian Federation A. M. Seitova 1 , A. N. Ignatov 1 , T. P. Suprunova 1 , I. L. Tsvetkov 1 , E. V. Deineko 2 , D. B. Dorokhov 1 , V. K. Shumnyi 2 , and K. G. Skryabin 1 1 Bioengineering Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117312 Russia fax: (095)135-05-71; e-mail: dorokhov@biengi.ac.ru 2 Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, 630090 Russia fax: (3832)33-12-78; e-mail: shumny@bionet.nsc.ru Received October 28, 2002 Abstract—Polymorphism of RAPD markers was analyzed in the wild soybean populations from the Far East region of Russia. The level of RAPD marker polymorphism was significantly higher in the wild than in the cul- tivated soybean. The results obtained suggest active development of genetically different groups of wild soy- bean. Geographically isolated subpopulations showed maximum distance from the main population of wild soybean. PLANT GENETICS