A preliminary assessment of genetic relationships among agronomically important cultivars of black pepper

Abstract

BackgroundThe impact of diseases such as Phytophthora foot rot and the replacement of unproductive cultivars by high yielding ones has brought about the disappearance of varieties in Piper species, like any other crop. Black pepper (King of spices), is a major spice crop consumed throughout the world. It is widely cultivated across various parts of the world apart from India. The different cultivars may be genetically related and could be a source of valuable genes for disease resistance and an increase in quantity and quality. Even though Western Ghats in India is believed to be the site of origin of this crop, numerous accessions from the NBPGR have not yet been evaluated. Our study aims to investigate the genetic relatedness in major cultivars of black pepper using Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism.ResultsAmplified Fragment Length Polymorphic (AFLP) DNA analysis was performed in thirty popular cultivars of black pepper from National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), India. Fingerprint profiles were generated initially with, five different primer combinations, from which three primer pair combinations (EAGC/MCAA, EAGG/MCTA and EAGC/MCTG) gave consistent and scorable banding patterns. From 173 scorable markers, 158(> 90%) were polymorphic which shows there is considerable variation in the available germplasm. The dendrogram derived by unweighted pair group method analysis (UPGMA) grouped the accessions into three major clusters and four diverse cultivars with only 30% similarity. Karimunda, a widely grown and popular cultivar was unique in the fingerprint profiles obtained.ConclusionThere are currently few fingerprinting studies using the valuable spice crop black pepper. We found considerable genetic variability among cultivars of black pepper. Fingerprinting analysis with AFLP proved to be an ideal tool for cultivar identification and phylogenetic studies. It shows the high level of polymorphism and the unique characterization of the major cultivars. An extensive range of similarity value between the cultivars was noted (6.01 to 98.13). Further screening of more cultivars will provide valuable information for current breeding programmes.

Microsatellite based analysis of genetic diversity of popular black pepper genotypes in South India

“…Sasikumar and Chempakam (1999) has reported the use of isozyme technology in the identification of two interspecific hybrids of Piper. We had conducted an AFLP analysis which revealed high genetic variability (more than 90% of polymorphism) among the genotypes of black pepper (Joy et al 2007). …”

Evaluation of genetic diversity in Piper spp using RAPD and SRAP markers

“…There have been few studies on genetic diversity of Indian black pepper using molecular markers (Pradeepkumar et al, 2003;Joy et al, 2007). However, the Piper spp that are distributed naturally in China have not been investigated to determine their genetic diversity and genetic relationships with each other.…”

Evaluation of genetic diversity in Alcea (Malvaceae) using SRAP markers

“…DNA markers hold useful information in comparison to morphological data (Chakrabarti et al, 2001;Pradeepkumar et al, 2003;Joy et al, 2007;Celka et al, 2010). The present study demonstrates that PCR based fi ngerprinting techniques, such as SRAP, are informative for estimating the extent of genetic diversity, as well as to determine the pattern of genetic relationships.…”

“…Alcea has a complicated taxonomy due to the very small number of diagnostic morphological characters, such as leaf sequence and confi guration of the carpels (Pakravan, 2008). DNA markers offer many advantages over morphological characters since are less infl uenced by the environment and provide a direct detection at the DNA level (Pradeepkumar et al, 2003;Joy et al, 2007). The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplifi cation of the DNA has proven to be a rapid, simple and inexpensive way to assess the structure and ge- netic diversity (Liu et al, 2012).…”