Genetic diversity of natural populations of medicinally valuable plant Satureja khuzistanica Jamzad based on ISSR markers

Satureja khuzistanica Jamzad has been used in pharmaceutical industry because of its interesting pharmacological and biological activities. This study was undertaken to evaluate the level of genetic diversity and differentiation of S. khuzistanica populations. For this purpose, 84 individual plants from seven populations of this species were studied using inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. A total of 157 bands were generated by 13 ISSR primers, of which 120 (88.35%) bands were polymorphic. Nei's gene diversity and Shannon information index varied between 0.24 and 0.28 and 0.35 and 0.42, respectively. Analyses of molecular variance detected 90% of variation within populations. Structure analysis showed the highest Delta K at K = 4, representing the individuals into four groups. In contrast to limited distribution and wild collection, the present study showed high level of genetic diversity in natural populations.