Analysis of genetic diversity in a collection of Plantago species: application of ISSR markers

The analysis of genetic diversity in medicinal plant species can greatly facilitate germplasm conservation and selection for use in breeding schemes. The aim of the present study was to assess the genetic diversity and differentiation of eight Plantago species using inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Thirty-one Plantago accessions belonging to eight species were collected from Iran environments. Polymorphisms in the DNA of Plantago accessions were analyzed using 25 ISSR primers. The data for 286 polymorphic bands indicated that the ISSR primers each amplified 5–21 polymorphic amplicons that were 100–3000 bp in size. The mean polymorphism was 83.83% and five primers showed higher polymorphism. The polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged from 0.1103 to 0.3829 with a mean of 0.2727. Accessions in P. amplexicaulis and P. pysillum represented the highest Nei's and Shannon's genetic diversity, while the lowest was obtained for P. lagopus. The phenetic network generated by the Neighbor-Net algorithm showed moderate conflict and splitting of the eight species. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) results showed the separation of accessions of the eight species. The results suggest that ISSR markers can differentiate Plantago species and that information on genetic diversity may assist in pre-breeding evaluations and Plantago germplasm conservation.