MOLECULAR IDENTIFICATION AND GENETIC VARIATION OF 13 HERBACEOUS PEONY CULTIVARS USING SRAP MARKERS

Identification and classification of herbaceous peony cultivars requires fast and efficient techniques. In the present study, sequence related amplified poly-morphism (SRAP) was used for molecular characterization and classification of 13 morphologically similar cultivars of Paeonia lactiflora Pall. The results showed that eight screened primer combinations produced 81 amplified fragments, with an average of 10.13 fragments for each primer combination, ranging in size from 50 to 500 bp. Among the total 81 fragments, 68 (84%) were polymorphic. The primer combination Me8Em9 with the highest polymorphism (100%) could not distinguish all the cultivars, but seven selected fragments produced by two primer combinations (Me8Em9 and Me4Em8) allowed differentiation among the thirteen similar cultivars. Comparison of pairwise similarity revealed that the genetic similarity coefficient among the cultivars ranged from 0.52 to 0.80. Further, Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) cluster analysis demonstrated that the molecular classification pattern based on SRAP data was neither related to flower form, nor to guard petal color. Instead, it showed moderate correlation to color of petaloid stamens (stamens transformed to petals).