ISSN 2169-3048
International Journal of Biochemistry and Biotechnology ISSN: 2169-3048 Vol. 4 (3), pp. 544-548, April, 2015. © International Scholars Journals
Full length Research paper
Investigation of Genetic Diversity in Ethiopian Collections of Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) as revealed by ISSR markers
*Baye Wodajo1, Feysal Bushira Mustefa2 and Kassahun Tesfaye3
1 Department of Biology, Faculty of Natural and computational science, Woldia University, P.O. box 400,Woldia,Ethiopia.
2Haramaya University, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, School of Plant Sciences, Ethiopia.
3 Department of Microbial, Cellular, Molecular Biology, Addis Ababa University, P.O. box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
E-mail: [email protected]
Accepted 10 November, 2014
Safflower (Carthamus tinctorious L.) is an oilseed crop that is valued as a source of high quality vegetable oil. Among the genus Carthamus, safflower is the only cultivated species. The objective of this study was to investigate the genetic diversity of safflower accessions from Ethiopia using ISSR molecular markers. In this study, the genetic diversity of 70 safflower genotypes originated from different geographical regions of Ethiopia was evaluated using four ISSR primers. DNA was extracted from selected plants per accession using a triple CTAB extraction technique. The four selected ISSR primers produced a total of 43 bands of which 87.5% were polymorphic. Among regions, safflower population from Oromia showed 0.32 and 0.48 gene diversity and Shannon diversity index, respectively, with the highest percentage of polymorphism (86.1%).The highest gene diversity (0.37) and Shannon index (0.55) was shown by the only tetra-nucleotide [(GACA)4, primer 873]. Moreover, AMOVA showed that 98.9% of the variation is attributed to within population while only 1.1% is among populations variation. The results reveal the presence of higher genetic diversity that deserves conservation attention and sustainable use strategy to improve the productivity of safflower in Ethiopia.
Key words: Carthamus tinctorius L, genetic diversity, ISSR molecular marker, polymorphism, Ethiopia.