Assessing the genetic diversity of Buchanania lanzan Spreng. (Chironji) using inter simple sequence repeat markers

Buchanania lanzan Spreng, a member of the Anacardiaceae family, is a valuable tropical fruit tree native to India. This tree species possesses enormous pharmacological properties and socio-economic significance but is underutilised due to inadequate genetic diversity and germplasm wealth resources data. The present investigation attempted to evaluate the diversity of nine accessions of B. lanzan obtained from three distinct geographical locations in the Chhattisgarh state of India using inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Ten ISSR primers were used, of which eight ISSR primers produced remarkable bands selected for genetic diversity analysis. The ISSR primers produced a total of 127 loci, of which 63 loci exhibited polymorphism. On average, each primer yielded 7.87 loci. The maximum polymorphism was observed for primer BLA4 (77.77%), while primer BLA10 exhibited the lowest polymorphism (25%). An average 49.87% polymorphism was detected amongst nine accessions using eight ISSR primers. The Jaccard's similarity coefficient exhibited a range of values between 0.63 and 0.98. Genetic variability in B. lanzan accessions is low owing to low polymorphism percentage, although they belong to different agroclimatic regions of the Chhattisgarh state.