Investigation of genetic diversity among fenugreek ecotypes using SCoT and URP markers

Various species of genus Trigonella are important from medical and food aspects.Assessment of genetic diversity is an important principal for plant breeding, providing an opportunity to identify the novel genetic characters and new genes for breeders. In the current work, 90 fenugreek ecotypes were evaluated for genetic diversity using several start codon targeted polymorphism (SCoT) and universal rice primer (URP) markers. Ten SCoT and 10 URP primers amplified a total of 100 and 109 fragments, respectively, which out all fragments were polymorphic. The mean values of polymorphic information content (PIC) for both marker systems was 0.34. However, the highest means values for MI and Rp parameters were estimated for URP compared with SCoT markers. The results of the molecular analysis of variance (AMOVA) based on SCoT, URP, and SCoT+URP data showed that the genetic variation within populations is more than between them. Based on genetic variation parameters, the highest number of observed alleles (Na), Shannon’s information index (I), Nei’s genetic diversity (H) and the percentage of polymorphic loci (PPL) were found in T. foenum-graecum and T. monantha species. Cluster analysis based on each marker and pooled data clustered all investigated samples into three main clusters. Furthermore, our results indicated that the grouping pattern obtained by pooled data is in accordance to taxonomic structure of species. In conclusion, our results revealed the high rate of genetic diversity within fenugreek ecotypes. Hence, this germplasm can be used as a valuable gene source for breeding programs.