DNA fingerprinting and genetic diversity analysis in Asparagus officinalis L. cultivars using microsatellite molecular markers

Garden asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) is known as a valuable genetic resource for both vegetables and medicinal purposes. However, little is known about the organization and diversity of repetitive DNA sequences, and the usefulness of such resources in analyzing genetic diversity and DNA fingerprinting in A. officinalis cultivars. In this study, a large-scale genome-wide identification of microsatellite molecular markers in A. officinalis genome was performed. Genetic diversity and DNA fingerprinting of 24 cultivars were carried out using the information obtained from polymorphic simple sequence repeats (SSRs) markers. The polymorphism information content were found in the range of 0.21-0.43 with an average of 0.35. The genetic distance of 24 cultivars were ranged from 0.26 to 1.07, with an average value of 0.75, indicating relatively high genetic diversity among these accessions. The dendrogram constructed by unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean clustering method classified these cultivars into two discrete groups revealing the genetic relatedness and diversity among these cultivars. Furthermore, the 24 cultivars were fingerprinted using three SSR primers. Our results showed that the primer pair Asp-SSR-2-C6 enabled the identification of 12 cultivars, whereas Asp-SSR-3-C10 and Asp-SSR-6-C4 primers could differentiate 13 and 10 cultivars, respectively. The present study deciphered the reliability of SSR markers for DNA fingerprinting and genetic diversity analysis in asparagus cultivars, which will facilitate the conservation, breeding and future genetic studies.