Genetic diversity study amongst Cymbopogon species from NE-India using RAPD and ISSR markers

Cymbopogon, an important genus of the family Poaceae, cultivated mainly for its essential oil, is a valuable medicinal and aromatic plant. Essential oils from this crop found a wide range of application including medicine, perfumery, ornamental, flavouring and therapeutic uses in pharmaceuticals and is emerging crop for bio fuel production. Many species of Cymbopogon cultivated worldwide but their identification is somewhat difficult since they do not have suitable genomic diversity information. Assessment of genetic diversity is therefore essential for conservation and management of this species. A total of 20 Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and 15 Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) primers were examined, of which 26 primers (13 RAPD and 13 ISSR) showed amplification and were used for further study. Unweighted Pair Group Method of Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) derived dendrogram in both the analysis was more or less similar and cluster analysis (CA) based on RAPD, ISSR and their combined data clearly discriminated the genotypes into different clusters. Result of principal component analysis (PCA) was in agreement with cluster analysis with a few exceptions. DNA based markers (RAPD and ISSR) could be effectively used for genetic diversity evaluation among Cymbopogon species. Results of this study will help in the conservation and Cymbopogon improvement/breeding programe. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.