Deciphering genetic diversity analysis of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) using RAPD and ISSR markers

Mudasir A Mir; Sheikh Mansoor; M Sugapriya; Mohammed Nasser Alyemeni; Leonard Wijaya; Parvaiz Ahmad

doi:10.1016/j.sjbs.2020.11.063

Deciphering genetic diversity analysis of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) using RAPD and ISSR markers

Saudi J Biol Sci. 2021 Feb;28(2):1308-1317. doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2020.11.063. Epub 2020 Nov 24.

Authors

Mudasir A Mir¹, Sheikh Mansoor², M Sugapriya³, Mohammed Nasser Alyemeni⁴, Leonard Wijaya⁴, Parvaiz Ahmad^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Plant Biotechnology, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar-190025, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India.
² Division of Biochemistry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu-180009, Jammu and Kashmir, India.
³ Research and Development Centre, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641046, Tamil Nadu, India.
⁴ Botany and Microbiology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Botany, S.P. College, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India.

Abstract

The existence of genetic diversity in Crocus sativus has globally remained a mystery till date. The study investigated PCR based DNA amplification profile of saffron using ISSR and RAPD based primers. A total of 38 amplicons were generated by ISSR primers in the range from 7 to 12 with an average of 9.50 bands per primer. 20 bands were found to be polymorphic and 18 were monomorphic with an average percentage of polymorphism as 52.48%. RAPD based amplification revealed a total 161 amplicons, 107 as polymorphic and 54 as monomorphic with an average percentage of polymorphism as 66.44%. Cumulative results of RAPD and ISSR demonstrated that Nei-Li's similarity index ranged between 0.70 and 0.97. The results of AMOVA has revealed 9% of variance among populations and 91% of variance within populations, Φ PT was found as 0.089, which indicates existence of genetic differences though limited. In conclusion, the results indicate that saffron accessions are minimally genetically differentiated, which could be capitalized in future breeding programmes to ameliorate this precious crop.

Keywords: Crocus sativus; Genetic distance; Genetic diversity; Markers; Molecular characterization; Polymorphism.