Genetic diversity of Chinese Wolfiporia cocos cultivars revealed by phenotypic traits and ISSR markers

Abstract

Wolfiporia cocos, a well-known medicinal fungus, has been widely used in China and other Asian countries due to its various therapeutic value. In this study, genetic diversity among 22 Chinese W. cocos cultivars were assessed using phenotypic traits and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR). The results demonstrated that a total of 686 bands were amplified by 17 selected primers, 81.9 % of which were found to be polymorphic. Genetic distance was from 1.05 to 7.62 (physiological characters), and the similarity coefficients were from 0.63 to 0.82 (ISSR). Both methods were effective in differentiating among strains. The unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA) dendrogram classified the 22 strains into six major groups. Comprehensive analysis indicated that the cultivated germplasm of W. cocos in China were rich in genetic diversity. The results of this study has contributed substantially to our knowledge of W. cocos genetic diversity and also provides a theoretical basis of use and conservation for W. cocos resource and breeding.