Genetic diversity of different cultivars in Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch .f. hueichingensis (Chao et Schih) Hsiao

Two types of molecular markers, random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR), were assayed to determine the genetic diversity of ten experimental materials in Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch .f. hueichingensis (Chao et Schih) Hsiao, including eight cultivars and two virus-free lines micropropagated by tip tissue culture from Wenxian county. A high level of polymorphism was found with both RAPD and ISSR markers, and Shannon’s Information index (I) were 0.3135 and 0.3577 for RAPD and ISSR markers, respectively. In RAPD analysis, 109 out of 177 bands (61.58%) were polymorphic effective number of alleles (Ne) was 1.3641. The RAPD-based genetic similarity (RAPD-GS) ranged from 0.63 to 0.93, with the mean of 0.7545. In ISSR analysis, a total of 110 alleles were detected, among which 79 alleles (71.82%) were polymorphic effective number of alleles (Ne) was 1.4037. The ISSRderived genetic similarity (ISSR-GS) ranged from 0.55 to 0.98, with the mean of 0.659. ISSR was better than RAPD to detect genetic diversity among these cultivars. A significant correlation (r = 0.648) was found between both sets of genetic similarity data, suggesting that both sets of markers revealed related estimates of genetic relationships. Cluster analysis indicated that all ten cultivars (lines) could be distinguished by both RAPD and ISSR markers. PCA analysis was employed to evaluate the resolving power of the markers to differentiate among them. This laid the foundation of the identification of Rehmannia cultivars and the efficient use of its germplasm resources. [Life Science Journal. 2007; 4(2): 69 – 75] (ISSN: 1097 – 8135).