Assessment of genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship among brinjal genotypes based on chloroplast rps 11 gene

Brinjal or eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) of family Solanaceae is grown widely as cultivated crop worldwide due to their great economic importance. It plays a significant role in human diet and health and have both phenotypic and genotypic diversity as well. The estimation of genetic diversity in eggplant is important for selecting the best genotypes for making improvement in crop as well as to broaden the genetic variations in breeding programs. The present study is aimed at evaluating the evolutionary divergence pattern and genetic relationship among 33 genotypes of eggplant selected from different ecogeographical regions of the world based on a chloroplast gene. To achieve the main objective, rps 11 gene from eggplant genotypes was amplified, sequenced and analyzed by using bioinformatics tools. The constructed phylogram by MEGA X grouped the 33 genotypes into two main clusters (cluster 1 and cluster 2) irrespective of geographic divergence with a narrow genetic diversity of 0.01% revealing the monophyletic origin in these brinjal accessions. This may be due to their limited sequence variability in rps 11 sequences. Divergence ranged from 0.01 to 0.12 with an average of 0.04 on the basis of pair wise distance calculation. In phylogenetic tree, BARI-1, Grif-13962, 036693, 033836, 033839, Kemar and Viserba were the most similar genotypes with overall bootstrap value of 99%, while Badanjan and MK-95 genotypes showed distant relationship. The presented results of low genetic variation and close phylogenetic relatedness strongly suggest that rps 11 gene is a potential source for assessing the phylogeny and diversity analysis among brinjal germplasm. This study also concluded that genetic diversity does not depend upon the geographical origin of eggplant. Additionally, it is hoped that this information will help to guide future germplasm collecting and genetic relationship of eggplant.