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ISSN 0095-4527, Cytology and Genetics, 2018, Vol. 52, No. 3, pp. 222–230. © Allerton Press, Inc., 2018.
Genetic Diversity of Persian Ecotypes of Indian Walnut
(Aeluropus littoralis (Gouan) Pari.) by AFLP and ISSR Markers
1
F. Vafadar Shamasbi
b, c
, N. Nasiri
a, b,
*, and E. Shokri
a, b,
**
a
Department of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Sari University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Sari, Iran
b
Genetics & Agricultural Biotechnology Institute of Tabarestan, Sari Agricultural Sciences
and Natural Resources University (SANRU), Sari, Iran
c
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Maragheh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran
*e-mail: najmeh.nasiri@gmail.com
**e-mail: e.shokri62@gmail.com
Received September 8, 2016
Abstract⎯Indian walnut Aeluropus littoralis (Gouan) Pari, well known for its salt tolerance and forage quality,
is a perennial monocot grass from Chlorideae tribe that shows a high potential to become an important genetic
model. Although, Aeluropus germplasm is very rich in Iran; but is still unexplored. In this study, 20 ecotypes
of A. littoralis were gathered from different geographic zones and a set 16 primers (ISSRs-AFLPs combined)
was used for genetic diversity evaluation. A total of 635 fragments and 594 polymorphic fragments were pro-
duced (93.5%) and modest levels of genetic similarity were found (ranging from 0.38 to 0.71) among ecotypes.
The results showed an equal competition between the two markers on polymorphism detection, so both
molecular techniques were able to distinguish the A. littoralis ecotypes. Furthermore, Dendrogram based on
both the Bayesian and PCoA analysis showed a clear discrimination and significant variation among eco-
types; however, molecular clustering indicated a weak concordance with geographical grouping. The amount
of molecular diversity revealed by molecular markers for A. littoralis in this study can be exploited for pasture
conservation programs and new forage crop development.
Keywords: Aeluropus littoralis, Germplasm, ISSRs-AFLPs, Molecular diversity, Molecular markers
DOI: 10.3103/S009545271803012X
INTRODUCTION
Indian walnut Aeluropus lateralis (Gouan) Pari, is a
C
4
grass and salt-secreting plant that occurs in coastal
and inland stressful habitats. Adaptive features like
binary propagation (through seeds and rhizomes),
widespread and branch-full roots, actively salt secret-
ing glands [1–3], high vacuolization capacity [4–6],
stable photo synthetic system [1, 7] and other mor-
phological and biochemical characteristics [4, 8] show
that this plant can survive in very harsh environments.
Recently, this grass has been widely exploited as a gene
pool for salinity tolerance [9–11] and its potential to
be developed into a grasseous halophytic model [12].
In addition, A. littoralis biomass constitute a major
part of the feeding program of sheep, goats, and cam-
els in the arid and semi-arid regions in some develop-
ing countries that and also several studies reported
regarding connection between this plant and its role in
forage quality [13, 14]. A. littoralis also has great poten-
tial for ameliorate agricultural land and pasture man-
agement. In Iran, climatic factors like hot-dry sum-
mers, cold winters, saline or alkaline soils and over-
grazing resulted in rangelands low productivity.
Therefore, as a prerequisite for the effective rangeland
conservation and restoration, it is of importance to
characterize and broaden the wild adaptable endemic
germplasm like Aeluropus sp. In this regard, evaluation
of genetic diversity will provide baseline information
for the proper handling of native germplasm.
Some DNA based molecular markers do not entail
any prior knowledge of the species' genome that can be
easily used to discover variation at the DNA sequence
level [15–17]. There have been recent studies of
genetic diversity in grass species based on molecular
markers [18–23]. PCR-based DNA profiling tech-
niques such as amplified fragment length polymor-
phism (AFLP) and inter simple sequence repeat
(ISSR) represent a very informative and cost-effective
approach to determine genetic diversity for a wide
range of organisms. AFLP fingerprinting combines
restriction digestion and polymerase chain reaction
(PCR) and provide a high discrimination power and
reproducibility in detecting polymorphism in a single
assay [24]. ISSR is a kind of DNA sequences confined
1
The article is published in the original.
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