Analysis of the genetic diversity in Saccharum spontaneum L. accessions from Guangxi Province of China with RAPD-PCR

Abstract

Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR was employed to analyze the genetic diversity within 89 Saccharum spontaneum accessions collected from five different ecological regions of Guangxi Province, China. Of the 87 bands generated by nine RAPD primers, 96.6% were polymorphic. A substantial degree of genetic diversity was found among the locally collected S. spontaneum accessions. Pairwise genetic distance coefficients between accessions ranged from 8.6% (between accessions 87-10 and Yunge ③) to 74.2% (between accessions 87-31 and 85-53) with an average of 39.9%. Based on these genetic distance coefficients, the 89 S. spontaneum accessions were clustered into four groups irrespective of their ecological regions using the Cluster program of SAS (V8) software. Information from the present study would be useful for the conservation of locally collected S. spontaneum germplasm and exploitation of its genetic potential during sugarcane crossing program.