Genetic and epigenetic study of rRNA genes in selected Jatropha species.

Abstract

The Jatropha genus contains a large group of plants under the Euphorbiaceae family. One of the plants within this genus, the Jatropha curcas, holds good potential as a biofuel plant, due to its high seed oil content and drought resistance. Interestingly, significant morphological variations have been observed from different collections of Jatropha curcas and Jatropha integerrima from all over the world. Genetic study on ribosomal genes of various Jatropha species and collections revealed high genetic variation is present between different species, but there is little or no genetic variation between different collections of the same species of Jatropha curcas and Jatropha integerrima. Epigenetic study of these same genes, however, show that there is evidence of epigenetic variation among Jatropha curcas collections, as well as among Jatropha integerrima collections, and we propose that this could be the reason behind their morphological variations.