Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Markers and Agronomic Traits Analysis Provide Strategies for Improvement of Bitter Gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

Some reports on genetic diversity based on morphological characterization on bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) are available; no work has been conducted to estimate genetic diversity using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers in accessions of south-China type. In the present study, 36 genotypes of M. charantia including few commercially cultivars, collected and separated from different regions accorded with the target of the breeding of bitter gourd of south-China type, were analyzed for diversity both at morphology and markers levels. Dendrogram was constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA) and the computation for multivariate analysis was not in consonance with the relative agronomic traits. Among 64 random decamer primers screened 8 were polymorphic and informative enough to analyze all the 36 genotypes, which yielded a total of 1142 bands, of which 992 (87%) bands were polymorphic. The polymorphic bands per AFLP primer combination are 82 similar to 89%. Pair-wise genetic distance (GD) based on molecular analysis ranged from 0.47 to 0.87, indicated the genetic diversity of the examined 36 accessions. Moreover, putative AFLP loci defined genetic relationships that allowed for partitioning of traits into two distinct groups after cluster analysis. The cluster patterns based on agronomic traits and molecular variation was different, which provided for the development of strategies for genetic analysis and crop improvement in the species.