THE USE OF HETEROLOGOUS CLONED DNA PROBES TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN RACES OF MELOIDOGYNE-INCOGNITA

DNA from one population each of the four races of Meloidogyne incognita was restriction endonuclease digested and Southern blotted onto nitrocellulose Filters. The filters were probed with a 7kb fragment consisting of the rDNA repeat of Caenorhabditis elegans (pCe7) and with a 3.1kb fragment, which contains part of the 18s ribosomal RNA gene from Schistosoma mansoni (pSM389). The results show that not only does rDNA from these species hybridise strongly with all four races of M. incognita, but the restriction fragment patterns produced allow the differentiation of two of the M. incognita races.