Assessment of genetic diversity among Lathyrus sativus L. genotypes, using semi-random intron-exon splice junction marker

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.), as one of the most important forage crop plants, has high content of protein and Laysin. In order to assess the genetic diversity of 33 genotypes of grass pea, 20 semi-random primers were used in the present study. DNA was extracted by CTAB method. The ISJ data were analyzed and 77% of IT bands and 81% of ET bands were polymorphic. The results showed that the average number of polymorphic bands per primer was 3.95 and the highest amount of polymorphic information content and marker index was belonged to ET18-6 primer. According to the Jaccard's similarity coefficient, the range of similarity among studied genotypes was varied from 0.42 to 0.89. Cluster analysis based on UPGMA method divided genotypes to 5 groups at cut of line in 0.71 similarity coefficient. The principle coordinates analysis showed that the first three components explained 74.65% of total variance indicating the restricted distribution of these ISJ markers at the grass pea genome. Present study is the first report on application of ISJ markers in grass pea, as important forage plant, which is hoped to be effective in the development of molecular breeding programs of this plant.