MOLECULAR DIVERSITY ANALYSIS AND DNA FINGERPRINTING OF DIFFERENT TURMERIC (Curcuma longa L.) GENOTYPES USING RAPD MARKERS

Abstract

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) has been widely used as a spice and flavouring agent in food. This study was done to analyze the molecular diversity among 8 turmeric genotypes using Random Amplified Polymorphic (RAPD) DNA primers. A total 12 RAPD primers were used to determine polymorphism among the turmeric genotypes to produce scorable DNA bands. Some total of 34 DNA bands were amplified and among them 23 were polymorphic bands. The range of DNA amplification varied from 100 to 900 bp. The rate of polymorphism was obtained about 63.88%. Genetic diversity ranged from 0.531 to 0.750 and the frequency of major allele ranged from 0.375 to 0.625. Nei’s genetic distance ranging from 0.0930 to 0.2013. The PIC value ranged from 0.468 to 0.712 with the average value was 0.589. The PIC value indicates that most of the studied turmeric genotypes was highly diversified and homogenous as well as no heterozygosity found. A dendogram indicating the relative genetic similarity of the turmeric genotypes was constructed which followed two major clusters (A and B) among the studied material. The cluster B was further subdivided. The results also showed that the genotypes can be separated from each other at the molecular level by taking advantage of some of the RAPD markers. The prevalence level of polymorphism in the local genotypes of turmeric will help breeders for the improvement of turmeric breeding program. This study can be used as a baseline for the future molecular research work on turmeric genotypes in Bangladesh.