Assessment of phylogenetic diversity and relationships among Grewia tenax population in Sudan using RAPD and ISSR molecular markers

Abstract

This research is conducted to study the genetic diversity of the genus Grewia tenax in Sudan. This plant has a common vernacular Sudanese Arabic name: “Gudeim”. It is mainly cultivated in North Darfur and Western Sudan. Common uses of Grewia species were overviewed in areas of nutrition, folk medicine and famine food. The genetic variation and genetic relationships among Grewia spp populations from different regions were efficiently determined using RAPD and ISSR markers. The results of genetic analysis were statistically analyzed by STATISTCA and GenALEx 6.5 software. The results of molecular variance revealed that 74% of total genetic diversity was due to within populations variations as opposed to 26% due to variations between populations unweighted pair- group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) were constructed for and RAPD + ISSR. The UPGMA results showed variability of Grewia genotypes. It was concluded that both the marker systems RAPD and ISSR combination can be effectively used in determination of genetic relationships among Grewia tenax genotypes.

Keywords

• grewia tenax
• genetic diversity
• rapd and issr
• genalex
• unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (upgma)