Genetic Variation of Fatty Acid Components in Arachis Species and Development of Interspecific Hybrids with High Oleic and Low Palmitic Acids

Wild Arachis species are important resource for genetic improvement of the cultivated peanut(Arachis hypogaea L.).Fatty acid composition is highly crucial for peanut quality in terms of nutritional value and shelf life duration,thus increasing oleate and decreasing the saturated fatty acids such as palmitic and stearic acids has been important breeding objectives worldwide.In the present study,fatty acids of 87 wild Arachis accessions and 113 interspecific hybrid derivatives were tested.Considerable variation in fatty acid components was observed among the Arachis species involved.Among the saturated fatty acids,lowest content of palmitic acid was identified in A.rigonii.Among the unsaturated fatty acids,the highest oleic acid contents were found in A.pusilla and A.duranensis and the highest linoleic acid was in A.batizocoi.Two genotypes(A.duranensis with documented number as 19-6 and A.sp.with documented number as 23-1) with oleic acid content more than 60.0% were identified.Compared to the cultivated peanut,stearic and oleic acid contents were slightly lower and linoleic acid content was slightly higher in the wild species while palmitic acid content was similar to that in A.hypogaea.The interspecific hybrid derivatives had wider ranges of most fatty acids than their parents.The variation of contents of palmitic,stearic,oleic and linoleic acids among the hybrid deriva-tives was statistically significant.Six derivatives with oleic acid content over 64.0% and palmitic acid content less than 8.5% were identified,among which yz8913-8 had a high oleic acid content as 67.85%(30.0% higher than its parents) and a low palmitic acid as 7.60%.Based on sequence-related amplified polymorphism(SRAP) analysis,new bands were observed in all these 6 derivatives.