**6.2 RFLP (Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism)**

This analysis exploits variation in the occurrence of restriction sites in genomic sequences hybridizing to a cloned probe. Originally, RFLP analysis required Southern blotting and hybridization, making the method fairly slow and laborious. This technique is still used to generate ''anchor'' markers, used by many scholars to make consensus recombinational maps, though it is often implemented with the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to generate the polymorphic fragments (Schulman, 2007).

Chung *et al*. (2006) evaluated levels of genetic diversity in USDA soybean germplasm (107 accessions), originated from six provinces in central China, using RFLP analysis. They detected significant genetic differentiation among the six provinces (mean *G*ST = 0.133). These results suggest that Chinese germplasm accessions from various regions or provinces in the USDA germplasm collection could be used to enhance the genetic diversity of US Cultivars.
