Assessment of Genetic Diversity Among Iranian Thymus kotschyanus Accessions Using Semi-Random Markers

Evaluation of genetic diversity is essential step at the first of different breeding program especially for exploitation of germplasm potential. In this research، eighteen accessions of Thymus kotschyanus were study using thirty semi-random ISJ primers. Genomic DNA was extracted from fresh leaves and products of polymerase chain reaction were separated on 1. 5% agarose gel by electrophoresis. Analysis of produced bands by ISJ primers showed that average polymorphism band number per primer and per accession were 19. 8 and 33، respectively. The highest polymorphic information content (PIC) and marker index (MI) was belonged to IT18-1 primer. Dendrogram of cluster analysis with UPGMA method obtained by DARwin5 software showed that most genetic similarity was belonged to two accession of Qazvin province. Results of principle component analysis revealed that the cumulative variance of first three components included 17. 5 % of total variance which indicates the primers used in this study have a good dispersion in plant genome. Grouping based on cluster analysis with grouping of principal component analysis had enough alignment. Totally، results of this study revealed high genetic diversity among T. kotschyanus in different areas of Iran and these results could be informative for future studies.