RAPD markers, instruments for determining the genetic relationships of tea plant in Iran

One of the important crop in the north of Iran that now many of them are at risk of disappearing, is tea plant (Camellia sinensis). In this study 60 accessions using 24 RAPD markers were investigated. Used RAPD markers amplified 219 bands that 81.28% of them showed polymorphic pattern. Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) were calculated for all markers (0.29-0.50). Total calculated PIC for all markers was 0.49 that evidenced the usefulness and high level of efficiency of used markers for investigating the diversity of available accessions. The pairwise similarity coefficient between the accessions varied from 0.43 to 0.94 whit average 0.65 by using Jaccard’s coefficient. According to cluster analysis samples were divided into three main groups at 0.61 similarity and second group also created three sub-group (at 0.65 similarity). The notable point in this cluster analysis is that the samples did not follow the geographical pattern. Similar result was observed in bi-plot analysis. In comparing the similarity and genetic distance of the studied populations, it was found that there is a high genetic similarity between the tea populations in Iran (0.919-0.950). In general, the results of this study showed that when the samples are compared individually, they show high diversity, but when we compared them demographically, it is clear that the diversity between the populations are low due to the way propagation, cross-pollination of tea plants and the number of imported primary plants are restored.