DNA fingerprinting and molecular diversity analysis for the improvement of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) cultivars

An investigation was conducted to assess genetic diversity of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) released 11 varieties of brinjal (BARI begun 1, BARI begun 4-10, BARI hybrid begun 1, 3 and 4) using PCR-based randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. A total of 44 distinct DNA amplified bands were observed for five primers (OPB-04, OPB-08, OPD-02, OPP-13 and OPW-08) with an average of 5.6 polymorphic bands per primer. The overall gene diversity was detected 0.216 and level of polymorphism was found 63.64%. The pair wise inter-variety similarity indices ranged from 67.03% to 97.61%. The UPGMA dendrogram segregated 11 genotypes of brinjal into two main clusters. The first major cluster had only one genotype (BARI begun 6) and the second major cluster had rest of ten genotypes. BARI begun 6 vs BARI begun 1 showed the highest Nei's genetic distance (0.5261) as they are released from different parental origin. On the other hand, BARI begun 9 vs BARI begun 7 varietal pair showed lowest genetic distance (0.0465) as they are released from same parental origin. The experiment reveals genetic diversity and relatedness among 11 brinjal genotypes which may be informative for the future varietal identification and genetic improvement of this vegetable crop.