Abstract
For the first time, genetic diversity among 14 ornamental palm accessions originating from different countries and grown in different regions in Egypt were examined. Identification of genetic variation and phylogenetic relationships in ornamental palms would be useful for its genetic identification, improvement, and conservation. Genetic polymorphism was analyzed using the randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) as well as protein markers. The electrophoretic pattern of protein analysis produced 21 bands distributed in all accessions with molecular sizes ranging from 11.8 to 99.3 KDa. Some accessions possessed some bands, which were absent in other accessions and could be used for their identification. Furthermore, 10 RAPD selected primers were employed to determine genetic variation among the 14 palm genotypes as well as to test the effectiveness of RAPD primers as a genetic marker. RAPD analysis revealed a high level of polymorphism (100%) among the studied accessions. A total number of 310 amplified bands were generated across the studied genotypes with an average of 30 bands per primer. Cluster analysis using sequence alignment was done to generate a dendrogram verifying the relationship among the 14 studied ornamental palms, with an average similarity matrix range of 0.00 to 0.08 and 0.39 to 0.93 for RAPD and protein markers, respectively. It is concluded that, both SDS-protein and RAPD markers are equally important for genetic analysis and are suitable for the characterization of ornamental palm collection.