Molecular analysis of genetic variability and relationship among <em>Gladiolus</em> cultivars

Abstract

In the present study, we analyzed genetic variability and relatedness in 62 <em>Gladiolus</em> cultivars using directed amplification of minisatellite DNA (DAMD) and inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR). The maximum inter-cultivar average genetic distance was 0.46 between Tiger Flame and Snow Flower cultivars, while the corresponding least genetic distance 0.14 was between Friendship Pink and Friendship White cultivars, respectively. The cumulative analysis carried out for the data generated with DAMD and ISSR markers showed 83.32% polymorphism across all the <em>Gladiolus</em> cultivars. This level of polymorphism resulted in the present investigation revealed that the amount of genetic variability in the <em>Gladiolus</em> genome is relatively high. The Jaccard&rsquo;s similarity coefficient and clustering of genotypes in the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) dendrogram revealed that some of the cultivars are closely related whereas others were found quite distinct from each other. The UPGMA dendrogram resulted in the identification of five major clusters. The present study further demonstrates that DAMD and ISSR are useful markers to elucidate the genetic variability and relationships amongst <em>Gladiolus</em> cultivars, and is a prelude for further utilization of promising and genetically divergent materials in the breeding programmes.