Assessment of Genetic Diversity of Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) Using ISSR Markers

Tayebeh Mohammadi Farsani,Badraldin Ebrahim Sayed-Tabatabaei,Nematollah Etemadi,Majid Talebi

doi:10.3390/ijms13010383

Tayebeh Mohammadi Farsani, Badraldin Ebrahim Sayed-Tabatabaei + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms13010383

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Abstract

Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) is a major turfgrass for home lawns, public parks, golf courses and sport fields and is known to have originated in the Middle East. Morphological and physiological characteristics are not sufficient to differentiate some bermudagrass genotypes because the differences between them are often subtle and subjected to environmental influences. In this study, twenty seven bermudagrass accessions and introductions, mostly from different parts of Iran, were assayed by inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers to differentiate and explore their genetic relationships. Fourteen ISSR primers amplified 389 fragments of which 313 (80.5%) were polymorphic. The average polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.328, which shows that the majority of primers are informative. Cluster analysis using the un-weighted paired group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) method and Jaccard’s similarity coefficient (r = 0.828) grouped the accessions into six main clusters according to some degree to geographical origin, their chromosome number and some morphological characteristics. It can be concluded that there exists a wide genetic base of bermudograss in Iran and that ISSR markers are effective in determining genetic diversity and relationships among them.

Highlights

Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers. is the most important member of the genusCynodon because of its widespread distribution in warmer parts of the world and its use as livestock herbage and turf [1]
We reported the feasibility of the inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR)-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as an interesting approach in providing accurate molecular markers for investigating the genetic diversity among bermudagrass accessions
The most polymorphism was shown by ISSR-5, which showed 92.8% polymorphism

Summary

Introduction

Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers. (common bermudagrass) is the most important member of the genusCynodon because of its widespread distribution in warmer parts of the world and its use as livestock herbage and turf [1]. The major limitations of these methods are low reproducibility of RAPD, high cost of AFLP and the need to know the flanking sequences to develop species specific primers for SSR polymorphism [4] Markers such as inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) [5] are widely used in genetic diversity studies because they need no prior DNA sequence information, development costs are low, and laboratory procedures can be transferred to any plant species [6]. DNA profiling techniques that have been successfully used in assessing relatedness of Cynodon accessions includes DNA amplification fingerprinting (DAF) [17], RAPD [18,19], AFLP [20,21], ISSR [22], SSR [23] and chloroplast specific simple sequence repeat length polymorphism (CpSSRLP) [20]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion