Characterization of genetic diversity in Jatropha curcas L. germplasm using RAPD and ISSR markers

Jatropha curcas L. is a rapidly emerging biofuel crop attracting a lot of interest, triggering large investments and rapid expansion of cultivation areas. In the present investigation, the genetic relationships of 29 J. curcas accessions were assessed based on randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) analyses. A total of 72 polymorphic primers (47 RAPD and 25 ISSR) were used. Amplification of genomic DNA of the 29 genotypes, using RAPD analysis, yielded 552 fragments that could be scored, of which 334 were polymorphic with an average of 7.1 polymorphic fragments per primer. Number of amplified fragments varied from 2 to 23 and ranged in size from 100-3,500 bp. The 25 polymorphic ISSR primers used in the study produced 336 bands across 29 genotypes, of which 201 were polymorphic. The number of amplified bands varied from 7 to 20 with a size range of 100-3,500 bp. Molecular polymorphism was 60.5 and 59.8% with RAPD and ISSR markers, respectively. Mantel test between the two Jaccard’s similarity matrices gave r=0.8623, showing good fit correlation between RAPD and ISSR based similarities. Clustering of genotypes within groups remained more or less similar in ISSR and combined data of RAPD and ISSR.