Molecular characterization of ten Heliconia (Heliconiaceae) genotypes by means of RAPD markers

<p>Moumita Malakar, Pinaki Acharyya and Sukanta Biswas</p>

Molecular characterization of ten Heliconia (Heliconiaceae) genotypes by means of RAPD markers

Moumita Malakar, Pinaki Acharyya and Sukanta Biswas

University of Calcutta, India

: J Plant Physiol Pathol

Abstract

Heliconia a trendiest specialty cut flower of tropics is securing popularity for its inflorescence’s charismatic form and alluringly blended hues in the world and in Indian market too. It is a monophyletic genus with roughly 200 to 250 species of neotropical origin. It resides alone in Heliconiaceae family of Zingiberales order former incorporated in Musaceae for fusion of inverted flowers, single staminode and drupe type fruits elite for it (Berry and Kress, 1991). Exploitation of molecular markers may aid in perceptive recognition of several species and varieties of them since taxonomic confusions and uncertainties subsist amid them (Kumar et al., 1998). In this context, ten species and varieties were analyzed using RAPD (Williams et al., 1990) markers. Chosen thirty primers among seventy, amplified 1281 polymorphic DNA fragments with each primer giving a mean of 42.7 polymorphic bands. The genetic similarity matrix constructed with Jaccard’s coefficient using RAPD marker scores showed that the highest value was between H. psittacorum var. ‘Choconiana’ and H. psittacorum var. ‘Lady Di’ (0.384), while the lowest was between H. psittacorum var. ‘Choconiana’ and H. stricta var. ‘Dwarf Jamaican Red’ (0.244). Ten species and varieties of Heliconia formed three distinct clusters at similarity coefficient value of 0.33, implying a parallelism between genetic and morphologic or taxonomic variability of Heliconia genotypes. ‘Golden Torch’, ‘Choconiana’, ‘Lady Di’ and H. wagneriana included in cluster I while ‘Choconiana’, ‘Lady Di’ formed a more cohesive entity. On the contrary, H. stricta var. ‘Dwarf Jamaican Red’ produced a separate cluster validating that taxonomically related entries clustered together and distant ones segregated. So, the current sequels demonstrate that RAPD is a rapid, relatively economical and functional for the characterization of genetic divergence between different Heliconia genotypes.