AFLP Analysis of Genetic Relationships among Container-grown Anthurium Cultivars

Abstract

Anthurium is the largest genus in the family Araceae, consisting of about 1000 species. Anthuriums are valued for their colorful spathes and traditionally used as cut flowers. With the introduction of compact cultivars through breeding, a series of container-grown cultivars have been released and widely produced as flowering foliage plants. However, limited information is available about genetic relatedness among these container-grown cultivars. This study analyzed genetic relationships of 58 cultivars using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers with near infrared fluorescence labeled primers. Forty-eight EcoR I + 2/Mse I + 3 primer set combinations were screened from which six primer sets were selected and used in this investigation. Each selected primer set generated 94 to 115 scorable fragments. A total of 647 AFLP fragments were detected of which 401 were polymorphic (67%). All cultivars were clearly differentiated by their AFLP finger-prints. A dendrogram was constructed using the unweighted pair-group method of arithmetic averages (UPGMA) technique and a principal coordinated analysis (PCA) was used to analyze the relationships. The 58 cultivars were divided into three clusters; clusters I, II, and III had 40, 10, and 8 cultivars, respectively. Most commonly grown cultivars were positioned in cluster I, where had Jaccard similarity coefficients among them ranged from 0.7 to 0.98. Eighteen of the 40 shared Jaccard similarity coefficient of 0.8 or higher, indicating that genetic diversity for cultivated container-grown Anthurium is needed.