Study of genetic diversity in some populations of Cordia myxa L. in Iran by using CDDP molecular marker

Cordia myxa L. (Boraginaceae Juss.) is a valuable medicinal and economic species growing in southern parts of Iran. This plant is resistant to salinity and drought and has an important role in preventing of soil erosion. So far, the amount of genetic variation of this species in Iran was unclear due to the lack of any study. Therefore, this study aims to assessment of genetic diversity of some populations of Cordia myxa in Iran by using CDDP molecular marker. Twenty five samples of 7 populations were collected from southern parts of Iran and were evaluated by 20 CDDP primers. GenAlex, Popgen and NTSYS software were used for data analysis. A total number of 222 bands were produced by 20 primers, from which 218 bands, in average 9.01% bands for each primer, were polymorphic. Based on clustering analysis by using Jaccard coefficient and UPGMA method on the resulted data, the samples were categorized in 4 separate groups at the level of 38% similarity. The highest amount of genetic diversity coefficient (0.232) were obtained for Shoosh population. Molecular Variance Analysis (AMOVA) also showed that intra-population diversity is higher (70%) than inter-population diversity (30%). This study proved the potential of CDDP marker to assess the genetic diversity in Cordia myxa L. populations.