Assessment of genetic fidelity in microclones of curry leaf plants [Murrayakoenigii (L.) Spreng.]using ISSR markers

Abstract

Murrayakoenigii (L.) Spreng., commonly called Indian curry leaf, is an aromatic shrub highly valued for its medicinal potentialviz. anticonvulsant, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antiviral and diuretic.Its leaves, locally known as curry patta, are used widely for culinary purpose, particularly in India. However, M. koenigii,due to poor rate of fruit set and seeds with short viability period and poor rate of germination, are sparsely distributedin wild, and has attractedresearchers for propagation through biotechnological approaches. In this context, maintaining genetic fidelity is a vital for assessing genetic uniformity in micropropagated plantlets as variations within the progeny can result in serious losses to the end users.therefore, it is necessary to screen them for their genetic makeup whether they are true-to-type or not. Molecular techniques like Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) that are not influenced by environmental factors are appropriate tools to analyse genetic fidelity of in vitro propagated plantsas, and generate reliable and reproducible results. In this study, we tried to evaluate genetic fidelity of micro-clones of tissue culture raised M. koenigii using ISSR technique. Twenty five ISSR primers were used to amplify genomic DNA from in vitro raised field grown plants and mother plant. Out of 25 primers screened, a total 465 amplified products were obtained from 10 ISSR primers. Out of which, 55 were monomorphic across the mother plant and its micropropagated progenies of 10 ISSR primers 05 showed profiles identical to mother plant. Similarity matrix based on Jaccard’s coefficient and pair-wise values between mother plant and tissue cultured plant ranged from 0.91 to 1.00, indicating a high degree of genetic fidelity.