A study of genetic diversity in bottle gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl.] population, and implication for the historical origins on bottle gourds in Turkey

Bottle gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl.] is one of the oldest cultivated plants, native to Africa and it distributed to over the World. Its dispersal route from Africa to America and Asia is still subject of studies. Similarly, when and how bottle gourd entered into Turkey is not known. In previous studies, bottle gourd germplasm collecting activities were undertaken in the country and the germplasm were analyzed morphologically. Here we report molecular analysis of 60 Turkish bottle gourds along with 31 diverse exotic accessions. Eighth Simple Sequence Repeats and two chloroplast loci of 91 accessions were analyzed. Capillary electrophoresis was used for DNA size fragman separation. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 13, with a mean of 7. Mean values for expected heterozygosity, observed heterozgosity, and polymorphism information averaged 0.5, 0.13 and 0.50, respectively, thereby sugguesting very low (0.13) genetic diversity in a very diverse population. An unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean dendrogram was constructed, Indian accessions clearly separated from the rest. Among the remaining samples, neither Turkish landraces grouped together based on their georgraphic origin, nor clear speration occurred according to origin continent. Interestingly, this co-dominant marker analysis shows close molecular allelic profile among bottle gourds originated from far different countries.