Genetic Relationships of Pistacia Species and Cultivars by SCoT Markers

Pistachio is one of the most important agricultural products and iran has the richest germplasm of pistachio in the world. The presence of this genetic resources will be an appropriate opportunity for use in breeding purposes. Knowledge of genetic relationships among pistachio genotypes has important role in it’s breeding programs. Molecular markers are one of the powerful tools for studying plant phylogenetic relationships. Start Codon Targeted (SCoT) technique is one of the molecular systems that used to assess the genetic relationship among different plant species and cultivars. This study was performed in order to evaluate the genetic relationships between a numbers of Pistacia species and cultivars using SCoT molecular markers and to assess the usefulness of this markers in differentiating this genus.

Plant materials of this study are included 29 genotypes of domestic and wild species of genus Pistacia. A total of 25 SCoT primers were used to evaluate the genetic relationships. Genomic DNA were extracted from leaf samples using CTAB method with minor modifications. The quantity and quality of the extracted DNA were measured by spectrophotometer and agarose gel electrophoresis. Cluster analysis based on Jaccard’s similarity matrix and complete linkage algorithm and Principal coordinate analysis were performed using NTSYSpc 2.02e software.

In total, 449 DNA fragments were amplified by primers out of which 433 bands (96/43%) were polymorphic. The average number of amplified fragments for each primer was 17.96 bands with a mean of 17.32 polymorphic bands per primer. A number of species-spicific marker were detected in some Genotypes. The average of polymorphism information content values varied from 0/18 to 0/38. Also, the values of marker indices ranged from 0/56 to 4/36. The range of similarity coefficients of genotypes varied between 25% to 68%. Cluster analysis divided Genotypes into two main cluster including vera (domestic) and wild species. Principal coordinate analysis separated vera cultivars and genotypes from wild species and confirmed the results of cluster analysis.

The results of this study demonstrated that SCoT molecular markers detected high polymorphism among pistachio species and cultivars and differentiated the studid genotypes. Therefore, SCoT Marker is a useful tool for studying phylogenetic relationships in genus Pistacia.