Evaluation of genetic diversity and construction of DNA fingerprinting in Polygonatum Mill. based on EST-SSR and SRAP molecular markers

Polygonatum sibiricumis widely consumed as a traditional Chinese herb and edible plant in China. Despite its nutritional and medical values, research onPolygonatumMill. has been scarce, particularly as far as its genetic diversity is concerned. In this study, fourteen expressed sequence tag-derived simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) and seven sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) markers were used to evaluate the genetic diversity in fiftyPolygonatumMill. accessions. The EST-SSRs and SRAPs produced 173 (90.58%) and 113 (93.39%) polymorphic bands, respectively. Unweighted Pair-Group Method Analysis (UPGMA) based on the combined data matrices of EST-SSRs and SRAPs divided the fiftyPolygonatumMill. accessions into fourteen groups. In addition, accessions ofP. cyrtonemaHua obtained from Anhui and Zhejiang provinces were clustered according to their geographic origin. Furthermore, some accessions were gathered together based on species, such asP. kingianumColl. et Hemsl, P. punctatumRoyle ex Kunth, P. odoratum(Mill.) Druce, andP. sibiricumRed.,and bootstrap analysis for clustering fully supported the grouping of the accessions. The Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) results revealed higher variation within populations (95%) rather than among populations (5%), indicating thatPolygonatumMill. has a low genetic differentiation between populations, and Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) greatly supported the results of cluster analysis and AMOVA analysis. Finally, five markers which could produce abundant and stable bands were used to construct DNA fingerprinting database ofPolygonatumMill..Our results demonstrated the utility of both EST-SSR and SRAP markers to successfully evaluate and identifyPolygonatumMill..