Due to the increasing popularity of Jatropha curcas as a feedstock for biodiesel, generating non-toxic and high yielding varieties of the plant requires genotypic characterization towards identifying breeding lines. There is little information on the phylogenetic relationships between its global accessions and species. Assessing genetic variation by RAPD, AFLP and combinatorial tubulin based polymorphism (cTBP) in 38 J. curcas accessions from 13 countries on 3 continents revealed narrow genetic diversity. However, 6 different species of Jatropha from India exhibited pronounced genetic diversity indicating possibilities of improving J. curcas by interspecific breeding. The relatively unexplored cTBP approach we used was a highly efficient and cost effective... |