Abstract
Genetic diversity between three pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) cultivars, Taify and Yemeni which are common cultivated in Taif region in KSA and one Egyptian pomegranate (Manfalouty) were investigated by Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Inter specific sequence repeats (ISSR) markers which showed to be a helpful tools for cultivar identification and finding the genetic distances among organisms. Total number of 30 samples, 10 for each cultivar, were collected and used in this study. Out of 20 RAPD primers, 10 primers showed reliable polymorphic patterns and revealed 180 bands, of which 18 were polymorphic (10%). When use RAPD marker the results included 10 positive unique markers in two cultivars, 7 loci within Taify cultivar, followed by 3 loci within Manfalouty cultivar. On other hand, there is one negative band number OPB-09 found in Yemani cultivar at loci 1401 bp. Moreover, 10 ISSR primers generated 246 amplification products, out of which 19 were polymorphic (7.7%) produced a total of 11 positive unique markers for the three cultivars; Taify has 5 positive bands at 5 loci ranged between (366 and 879 bp), followed by Manfalouty cultivar showed 4 loci of 3 primers ranged between (623 and 1492 bp) in molecular weight. While, Yemeni cultivar produced two positive markers at loci 368 and 574 bp. Cluster analysis of the genotypes was accomplished based on information from polymorphic RAPD and ISSR bands by using exploitation Jaccard's similarity constant and UPGMA clustering techniques. The highest and lowest similarities detected between genotypes were 0.95 and 0.98 genetic similarities occurred between the Manfalouty and Taify then Yemeni and the Taify, respectively. The genotypes were divided into two sub-clusters contained Manfalouty with Taify together in a sub-cluster and other one contained Yemeni. Data verified that the tested primers were informative to discriminate the genetic distance among pomegranate cultivars. Therefore, RAPD and ISSR markers are good successful tools to determine the genetic relationships among genotypes for designing the selection and crossbreeding of pomegranate.