Genetic Diversity of Turkish Spinach Cultivars

Abstract

In this study, 95 Turkish spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) accessions were used for genetic diversity analysis by using the SRAP (Sequence Related Amplified Polymorphism) marker system and also 81 of the spinach accessions were used for morphological data analysis using data from the Centre for Genetic Resources, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. In the study, a total of 25 SRAP marker combinations were used and 19 of these were suitable for genetic analysis because they gave amplification and they were polymorphic. For the 19 SRAP markers, 123 bands were amplified and 67 were polymorphic. These polymorphic bands were used to construct a dendogram for spinach cultivars and to determine the genetic distance. Dendrogram analysis was done UPGMA method which was calculated using DICE matrix. Genetic similarity ranged between 0.30 and 0.95. Group B had most related accessions, 0.77 similar, and Group A, C and D had more distinct accessions, 0.60 similarity. For the morphological data PCA(Principal Component Analysis) was performed and no any apparent group was seen so high diversity was indicated by the 2D plot. All these results showed that the SRAP marker system was a suitable marker to determine genetic diversity, that Turkish spinach germplasm is diverse and that accessions should be preserved. Another importance of this results is that it is the first and only study that has been done with Turkish spinach germplasm.