Genetic diversity analysis of Tagetes species using PCR

based molecular markers

 

Irum Shahzadi, Raza AhmaD, Ummara Waheed and Mohammad Maroof Shah^*

 

Biotechnology Program, Department of Environmental Sciences,

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan

*Corresponding author’s email: mmshah@ciit.net.pk; Ph: 0092-992-383591-6

 

Abstract

 

Tagetes is a genus of medicinally important wild and cultivated plants containing several chemical compounds.  Lack of information on variation at molecular level present in Tagetes species is paramount to understand the genetic basis of medicinally important compounds. Current study aims at finding genetic variability in Tagetes species using random and specific molecular markers. Two primer systems including 25 RAPD and 3 STS (limonene gene) were used to ascertain genetic diversity of 15 Tagetes genotypes belonging to different species.  We found that 20 of the 25 tested RAPD primers generated stable band patterns with 167 loci of amplification products. The proportion of polymorphic bands was 95.21% for RAPD primers. Three STS primers generated a total of 29 amplification products, of which 96.55% were polymorphic. Homology of genotypes was 53.18% and 51.11% with RAPD and STS primers respectively.  The dendrogram obtained revealed that the range of overall genetic distances estimated was 22% to 100% through RAPD and 9% to 100% through STS markers. The findings help to establish that PCR-based assay such as RAPD and STS could be used successfully for estimation of genetic diversity of different genotypes of Tagetes that can be used for selection of parents for improvement of the species.

 

Key words: Genetic diversity, Tagetes, RAPD, STS, Monoterpenes, Limonene synthase gene.