Study on Genetic Diversity of Resistance to the Rust in Iranian Garlic Clones (Allium sativum L.) Using NBS profiling Technique

Garlic rust is one of the most important diseases of garlic worldwide, which hardly can be controlled by applying fungicides while the weather condition goes on the favor of the disease progress. The NBS-profiling approach is one of the effective methods for separating the replicated parts of resistance gene analogues (RGA). In this study, 12 primers (NBS-LRR) were used on 16 Iranian garlic clones. Out of 499 scored marker sites in the range of 100 to 800 bp for NBS, from which 477 sites were multi-faceted (95.59 percent). The highest number of marker sites was for the primer combination NBS1-AluI and the lowest was for the primer combination NBS7-RsaI. The highest polymorphism occurred with combination NBS2-AluI and NBS1-AluI with 70 alleles and the lowest polymorphic composition occurred in NBS7- RsaI combination. The results of cluster analysis using UPGMA divided the clones into eight separate groups. This study showed that there is a significant diversity in the homologues of resistance genes in the Iranian garlic clones, which can be exploited in plant breeding programs. In addition, the results indicated that the NBS profiling technique is an efficient method for investigation on diversity of resistance genes in various plant species, including garlic. Using of NBS-profiling technique to study the diversity of resistance genes in garlic clones was addressed for the first time in the world in this study.