Abstract
Abstract
The study was conducted at the University of Duhok, College of Science, Department of Biology, from October 2021 to February 2023, focused on investigating the micropropagation and genetic diversity of seven pomegranates (Punica granatum L.) Masafik, Melisse, Radisho, Armishte, Shahraban, Halapja, and Dwarf. The experiments were conducted in the Plant Tissue Culture and Plant Molecular Laboratories at the Scientific Research Center (SRC), College of Science, University of Duhok,. The main aim of this study was to assess the genetic diversity, genetic relationships, and gene stability of the pomegranate cultivars being investigated, using Sequence Related Amplified Polymorphism (SRAP) DNA markers.
The results showed that only four tested SRAP primer combinations produced consistent and distinct polymorphic patterns in all 21 pomegranate genotypes, including the seven cultivars, the produced callus, and the regenerated plantlets formed from the callus. In the seven cultivars of Punica granatum, the combination of EM29-ME5 primers produced the highest number of banding patterns at 14, while primer EM29-ME17 produced only seven bands, totaling 42 bands. There were 3 monomorphic bands and 39 polymorphic bands, averaging 91.88%. The genetic relationship between species was determined using the calculated genetic distance, which ranged from the lowest value of 0.11989 between Armishte and Melisse to the highest value of 0.73162 between Melisse and Masafik. The dendrogram recognized three clusters for similarity between the cultivars. Thus, the study successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of PCR-SRAP markers in assessing the genetic diversity among various pomegranate cultivars. The analysis identified four reliable SRAP primer combinations that generated distinct polymorphic patterns across 21 genotypes, including multiple cultivars, callus tissue, and regenerated plantlets..
Main Subjects
Ercisli, S.; Kafkas, E. and Orhan, E. (2011). Genetic characterization of pomegranate (Punica granatum L) genotypes by AFLP markers. Biol. Res. ,44(4):345–50.