Molecular Characterization of Brinjal (Solanum melongena L) Cultivars using RAPID and ISSR Markers

Molecular characterization of 19 advanced cultivars and landraces of brinjal was carried out using RAPID and ISSR markers. Twenty-nine RAPID primers generated a total of 240 amplified fragments, while 23 anchored and non-anchored ISSR primers produced 299 fragments. Of these, 66 (27.5%) RAPID and 56 (18.73%) ISSR fragments were polymorphic. All the cultivars could be distinguished based on RAPID and/or ISSR profiles. A set of two RAPID primers, OPW 11 and OPX 07, was adequate to distinguish all the 19 cultivars. On the other hand, a minimum of ten ISSR primers were required to achieve the same result. Eleven cultivars could be identified by the unique presence or absence of one to four markers. The correlation between primer Rp and the number of cultivars distinguished by RAPID was r = 0.873, while that for ISSR it was r = 0.327. The correlation between PIC of primer and the number of cultivars distinguished was r = 0.324 for RAPID, while for ISSR primers it was r = 0.066. The probability of chance identity between two cultivars for RAPID and ISSR markers was calculated as 8.94x10(-4) and 2.25x10(-2), respectively. The average Jaccard's similarity coefficient between cultivars based on combined RAPID and ISSR data was estimated to be 0.919. The UPGMA analysis grouped the cultivars into three main clusters with significant bootstrap support. While the cultivars bred at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi formed one sub-cluster; others did not show a prominent region-based clustering.