English

K Adeacute Oti,S Santoni,A Rival,R Vodouhegrave,A Nato,A Dansi,B C Ahohuendo,A Ahancheacute Deacute,T Beule,D J Hounhouigan,A Sanni,Y Henry

doi:10.5897/ajb10.1983

Abstract

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers were used to evaluate the genetic diversity and explore the genetic relationship among accessions of Acmella uliginosa and Justicia tenella, two leaf vegetables collected from different areas in the northwest and northeast parts of Benin (West Africa). The total number of exploitable amplicons revealed with genomic DNA from A. uliginosa was 224 with an average of 50.5% polymorphic amplicons. Using DNA from J. tenella, we obtained 34% of polymorphic amplicons from a total of 418. The coefficient of dissimilarity varied from 0.01 to 0.67 and from 0.17 to 0.62 for Acmella and Justicia, respectively. Low genetic diversity was observed among Acmella accessions although three distinct clusters could be differentiated. Contrarily, a great genetic diversity was observed among J. tenella accessions. In addition to this, most of the clusters were heterogeneous and showed the relationship between accessions collected from northeast and northwest. Our results confirm the robustness of AFLP techniques for genetic diversity studies and they provide the first set of molecular data for these two species.   Key words: Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), genetic diversity, leafy vegetable, Benin.

Highlights

Traditional leafy vegetables (TLVs) are plants whose leaves are socially accepted, used and consumed (Shippers, 2000)
The plant materials under study consists of seventeen accessions of A. uliginosa and fourteen accessions of J. tenella collected from various villages (Table 1) located in the northern part of Benin (Adeoti et al, 2009)
The number of amplicons obtained per primer combination ranged from 51 to 88 and the percentage of polymorphic amplicons generated by each primer combination ranged from 30 to 71% (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Traditional leafy vegetables (TLVs) are plants whose leaves are socially accepted, used and consumed (Shippers, 2000). TLVs of interest, among which are Acmella uliginosa and Justicia tenella (Dansi et al, 2008a, 2009). In Benin, these neglected and underutilized species (NUS) are locally cultivated mainly in the northern part of the country, where they are intensively consumed (Dansi et al, 2008b; Adéoti et al, 2009). A. uliginosa is a key nutraceutical for local rural populations. It is used as an antibiotic, which stimulates milk production and facilitates the elimination of blood clots in women after delivery (Dansi et al, 2009). To the best of our knowledge, such information has never been reported on these species

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion