Genetic diversity and relationships among safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) analyzed by inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSRs)

Genetic diversity and relationships among 48 safflower accessions were evaluated using 22 inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) primers. A total of 429 bands were amplified, and 355 bands (about 82.7%) were polymorphic. Five to forty-one polymorphic bands could be amplified by each primer, with an average of 16.1 polymorphic bands per primer. The results showed that the polymorphism of the safflower germplasm was higher at the DNA level. All the 48 accessions could be distinguished by ISSR markers and were divided into 9 groups based on ISSR GS by using UPGMA method. The genetic relationships among the accessions from different continents were closer. Comparatively, the genetic diversity of the accessions originated from Asia was higher, from Europe assembled. The results also showed that the genetic variation of accessions from Indian and Middle Eastern safflower diversity centers were relatively higher. ISSR is an effective and promising marker system for detecting genetic diversity among safflower and give some useful information on its phylogenic relationships.