Molecular Cytogenetics of Eurasian Species of the Genus Hedysarum L. (Fabaceae).

Olga Yu Yurkevich,Olga V Muravenko,Alexandra V Amosova,Tatiana E Samatadze,Svyatoslav A Zoshchuk,Svetlana I Romashkina,Inessa Yu Selyutina

doi:10.3390/plants10010089

Abstract

The systematic knowledge on the genus Hedysarum L. (Fabaceae: Hedysareae) is still incomplete. The species from the section Hedysarum are valuable forage and medicinal resources. For eight Hedysarum species, we constructed the integrated schematic map of their distribution within Eurasia based on currently available scattered data. For the first time, we performed cytogenomic characterization of twenty accessions covering eight species for evaluating genomic diversity and relationships within the section Hedysarum. Based on the intra- and interspecific variability of chromosomes bearing 45S and 5S rDNA clusters, four main karyotype groups were detected in the studied accessions: (1) H. arcticum, H. austrosibiricum, H. flavescens, H. hedysaroides, and H. theinum (one chromosome pair with 45S rDNA and one pair bearing 5S rDNA); (2) H. alpinum and one accession of H. hedysaroides (one chromosome pair with 45S rDNA and two pairs bearing 5S rDNA); (3) H. caucasicum (one chromosome pair with 45S rDNA and one chromosome pair bearing 5S rDNA and 45S rDNA); (4) H. neglectum (two pairs with 45S rDNA and one pair bearing 5S rDNA). The species-specific chromosomal markers detected in karyotypes of H. alpinum, H. caucasicum, and H. neglectum can be useful in taxonomic studies of this section.

Highlights

The genus Hedysarum L. (Fabaceae: Hedysareae) comprises about 200 species of annual or perennial herbs distributed in Asia, Europe, North Africa, and North America which adapt to diverse habitats including temperate forests, stepped, polar and high-mountain regions [1,2,3]
In karyotypes of all studied accessions of H. alpinum (Figure 5q–t) and one accession of H. hedysaroides (K 445-17) (Figure 4c), we revealed variant 5S-sim together with variant 5S-alp which denoted a 5S rDNA cluster localized in the proximal region of the short arms of chromosome pairs 4
Hedysarum were divided into four main groups according to the chromosome localization of 45S and 5S rDNA clusters: (1) H. arcticum, H. austrosibiricum, H. flavescens, H. hedysaroides and H. theinum; (2) H. alpinum and one accession K 445-17 of H. hedysaroides; (3) H. caucasicum and (4) H. neglectum

Summary

Introduction

The genus Hedysarum L. (Fabaceae: Hedysareae) comprises about 200 species of annual or perennial herbs distributed in Asia, Europe, North Africa, and North America which adapt to diverse habitats including temperate forests, stepped, polar and high-mountain regions [1,2,3].The systematic knowledge on the genus Hedysarum is still incomplete, with uncertainty in generic delimitation. (Fabaceae: Hedysareae) comprises about 200 species of annual or perennial herbs distributed in Asia, Europe, North Africa, and North America which adapt to diverse habitats including temperate forests, stepped, polar and high-mountain regions [1,2,3]. Based on comprehensive morphological studies, the section Gamotion [5] is renamed into the sect. Within the sections of the genus, the presence of morphologically intermediate forms and significant intraspecific morphological diversity complicate discrimination between closely related species [2,6]. Only scattered data on the species occurrence in Eurasia are currently available, and spatial overlap in species distributions is still uncertain

Results

Discussion

Conclusion