Genetic diversity of dog rose (Rosa canina L.) using ISSR markers

Dog Rose is one of the most important species in Rosaceae family used as a medicinal plant and a rootstock for ornamental roses. This species is native to Iran, therefore, identification of indigenous genotypes of this species is important for genetic preservation or breeding purposes. Genetic diversity estimation of plant materials is one of the important pre-breeding activities in breeding crops. In this study, genetic variation of 23 genotypes of R. canina was investigated using fifteen ISSR markers. The genotypes were collected from three regions of Ardabil province (Namin, Nir and Khalkhal). The results showed that all primers generated clear and consistent polymorphic bands (77% polymorphism) but, ISSR-15 revealed a high numbers of polymorphic bands and was superior to other markers. Also, the ISSR-15 produced the highest number of polymorphic bands with seven scorable bands, while the UBC-823 and UBC-825 markers had the least number of bands (3 bands). The clustering pattern of genotypes was related to geographic regions. The genotypes from Khalkhal region were separated from other genotypes (Nir and Namin genotypes) in cluster analysis. The results of the current study indicated that the ISSR markers separated genotypes based on geographic region. The best way to select parents is to use genotypes with high genetic distances. Therefore, we determined the genetic distance among genotypes. According to the results, ISSR is an efficient marker system that can provide excellent information among R. canina genotypes. Finally, the obtained results indicated that the R. canina genotypes investigated in this research have a wide genetic diversity.