Investigation of genetic diversity in Persian Cumin [Bunium persicum (Boiss.) B. Fedtsch.] germplasm from Kerman province using RAPD molecular markers

Persian Cumin, a medicinal and aromatic plant, belongs to Apiaceae family. The objective of this study was to assess the genetic variation in germplasm of Persian Cumin collected from Kerman province using RAPD molecular markers. The Persian Cumin fruits were collected from 43 various regions in Kerman province. DNA was extracted from fruits using modified CTAB method. From the 27 used primers in PCR, 19 primers with better bands were selected for analysis. The 446 polymorphic bands obtained by these primers were scored. The binary matrix was converted to distance matrix by applying Dice similarity coefficient in NTSYS-pc (Ver 2.02) software. Then, the distance matrix was analyzed using UPGMA and the phyllogenic dendrogram was plotted. Based on the results, investigated populations were clustered in 7 groups. The obtained clusters based on RAPD markers to some extent matched with the geographical origin of the studied populations of Persian Cumin. Furthermore, the obtained results of principal component analysis method were similar to the results of cluster analysis. The results indicated that RAPD technique is an efficient tool for assessing genetic diversity in these populations.