Evaluation of Genetic Diversity in Chlorophytum borivilianum (Santp. and Fernan.) Using Molecular Markers: An Endangered Medicinal Plant

Chlorophytum borivilianum is a traditional medicinal plant distributed throughout the trop‐ ics and subtropics. In the present investigation, RAPD and ISSR analyses were used to assess the genetic diversity among 21 accessions collected from different geographical regions of India using 20 RAPD primers and 6 ISSR primers. RAPD and ISSR primers revealed 92.26% and 82.76% polymorphism, respectively. Similarity in coefficient values ranged from 0.321 to 0.707 for RAPD and 0.363 to 0.846 for ISSR markers. The dendro‐ gram developed by RAPD and ISSR marker‐based analysis grouped the 21 accessions into different clusters. Mantel test employed for detection of goodness of fit established the cophenetic correlation value for both the primer systems and it was observed to be significant. Clustering of accessions within groups was also similar based on RAPD‐ and ISSR‐derived dendrograms. In our study, both marker systems were similar except for the percentage polymorphism which was found to be greater using RAPD, thus indicating the greater effectiveness of RAPD primers for estimating genetic variation of C. borivilianum.