Association study between some cultivated species and their wild relatives from Apiaceae, Asteraceae and Brassicaceae families based on molecular and DNA barcoding in Egypt

Concerns about food security worldwide have been raised due to the adverse impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity. Utilizing wild relatives of cultivated plants in breeding schemes is a potential solution to address the abovementioned challenges. Wild relatives refer to indigenous plant species that share genetic ancestry with recently cultivated plants. The capacity of plants to withstand abiotic stresses and enhance crop yield stability in cold and arid environments renders them a valuable prospective resource for breeding programs. Molecular markers are employed to assess the genetic variability of cultivated plants and their wild relatives under investigation. This study employed a set of five primers derived from ISSR (Inter Simple Sequence Repeats) and SCoT (Start Codon Targeted) to assess comparative research between cultivated species and their wild relatives from three families: Apiaceae (Apium gravolens L., A. leptophyllum (Pers.) F.Muell., Daucus carota L.& D. litoralis Sm.), Asteraceae (Lactuca sativa L. & L. serriola L.) and Brassicaceae (B. oleracea L., Brassica tourneforttii Gouan., Raphanus sativus L. & R. raphanistrum L.). The ISSR technique yields approximately 206 bands, whereas the SCoT primers generate approximately 207 bands. The ISSR primers yielded 169 polymorphic bands, exhibiting a polymorphism rate of 82.04%, whereas the SCoT primers produced 169 polymorphic bands with a polymorphism rate of 81.64%. The Brassicaceae has been found to exhibit the highest resolving power (RP) of 48.25, as determined by ISSR. The primary objective of DNA barcoding is to create a communal database of DNA sequences that can be utilized to identify organisms and clarify their taxonomic classification. The findings indicate that the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions exhibit high efficacy as a DNA barcoding tool. Overall, the results obtained from two molecular markers and DNA barcoding analyses suggest a significant degree of genetic diversity and relatedness among the cultivated taxa and their wild relatives examined in this study.