Assessment of the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship of Dianthus caryophyllus germplasm using ISSR and RAPD molecular markers

In this study, the genetic diversity among 40 carnation cultivars and lines bred in Korea was assessed using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprinting and inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR). For the polymorphism analysis, a total of 20 RAPD decamers and ten ISSR molecular markers were employed. A consensus phylogenetic tree was constructed using the binary data obtained from the banding pattern generated by the individual markers. Further, the cluster analysis using Jaccard's similarity coefficient based on the un-weighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) revealed the genetic similarity among the cultivars. Among the molecular markers, the highest percentage of polymorphism (77.7%) was obtained using ISSR markers. Further, the dendrogram constructed using the UPGMA-based hierarchical clustering algorithm displayed two main clusters with 'PB' in cluster I and other cultivars in cluster II with 80% genetic distance. Among the cultivars, 'PB' was distantly related to all other cultivars included in this study. Thus, a method for identifying polymorphism in carnation cultivars using a dual-marker system was established.