Genetic variation analysis of melon (Cucumis melo L. ‘Tacapa Gold’) using inter-simple sequence repeat

Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is one of the most favorite fruit in Indonesia because of its high contains of nutrients. Melon ‘Tacapa Gold’ is produced by natural polination between melon ‘Tacapa Silver’ and ‘Hikapel’. The phenotype of ‘Tacapa Gold’ cultivar has been identified, but its genetic variation has not been studied yet. This study aimed to analyze the genetic variation of melon cultivar ‘Tacapa Gold’ compared to ‘Tacapa Silver’, ‘Hikapel’, and two commercial melons (‘Aramis’ and ‘PI 371795’). PCR-ISSR method with four random primers was used to evaluate genetic variation in melon. The level of genetic similarity was determined by simple matching coefficient (SSM) and the dendrogram was constructed by clustering analysis with unweighted pair-group using arithmetic averages (UPGMA). The research was started with melon seeds germination and cultivation, samples preparation, DNA extraction, DNA qualitative test, DNA quantitative test, DNA amplification using PCR-ISSR, amplification analyzing with electrophoresis, and molecular data analyzing. The results of scoring test were analyzed with MVSP 3.1A program. Four random primers (UBC-808, UBC-809, UBC-811, UBC-824) yielded 26 monomorphic DNA bands and 25 polymorphic DNA bands. Similarity indexes of cultivar melon 'Tacapa Gold' with 'Tacapa Silver', 'Hikapel', 'PI 371795', and 'Aramis' melons were 76.7%; 71.4%; 58.3%; 65.2% respectively. It could be concluded that melon 'Tacapa Gold' had the closest relationship with 'Tacapa Silver' and the farthest was melon 'PI 371795'.