Study of Morpho-phenological diversity and expression of genes involved in γ-Terpinene and Linalool biosynthesis in Iranian endemic populations of coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.)

Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) is a heliophytic plant and native to southwestern Asia and the Mediterranean regions. This study was aimed to study the morphological diversity, phenological characteristics, and also expression of two important genes involved in the γ-Terpinene and Linalool biosynthesis pathways in the 14 different Iranian endemic populations of coriander as a medicinal plant. The seeds were planted in the growth chamber in the College of Agriculture, Tarbiat Modares University in three replications in 2015-2016. The studied traits were included number of days to germination, number of days to emergence, number of days to stem, number of days to beginning of flowering, number of days to end of flowering, number of days to sowing, stem height, dry weight of single plant, single plant yield and one thousand seed weight. The results showed that the average seed yield obtained per plant with 14.37 and 14.47 g, was belong to populations of Tehran and Urmia, respectively. Markazi and Tehran populations had the highest weight of 1000 seeds with the average of 8.45 and 8.15 g, respectively. Tehran population had the lowest in terms of the number of days to germination and the number of days to emergence. After classifying the 14 populations in terms of genome size, from the three groups obtained and in each group, two populations were selected for the gene expression analysis. The results of expressions of CsLINS and CsγTRPS genes in six selected coriander populations showed that CsLINS in Mashhad and Tehran populations and CsγTRPS in Tabriz and Zanjan populations had the highest relative gene expressions. Yazd and Estahban populations showed moderate relative gene expression for both genes.