GENETIC DIVERSITY AND PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL POMEGRANATE (PUNICA GRANATUM L.) GENOTYPES FROM SOUTHEASTERN TÜRKIYE USING ISSR MARKERS AND TRNL-F CHLOROPLAST DNA SEQUENCES

Abstract

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is a significant fruit crop that has high nutritional, economic and genetic values. The genetic relationships among 24 pomegranate accessions (18 local genotypes from Mardin, 5 registered cultivars and 1 Siirt Seedless genotype) were analyzed using chloroplast trnL-F sequence and ISSR markers. The fragments of the trnL-F region were amplified and the fragments were around 450 bp. All accessions were clustered together in the Neighbor-Joining analysis, except genotype 15 (accession 47 N 15), which was on a separate branch. Maximum likelihood analysis gave higher resolution, and yielded three large clusters with genotype 15 appearing separately. Initially, a total of 23 ISSR primers were screened, and six of them were selected because they produced clear, reproducible, and polymorphic band patterns. A total of 30 amplified bands were generated by these primers, with an overall polymorphism level of 60%, which included 18 polymorphic bands. Polymorphism rates ranged from 33% to 83%, and PIC values varied between 0.13 and 0.37, with the highest values obtained from primer UBC845. UPGMA clustering and PCoA revealed genetic differentiation among the ac-cessions, with genotype 1 (accession 47 N 01) showing the most distinct position in the ISSR dendrogram. Overall, ISSR markers provided higher discriminatory power than the chloroplast trnL-F region. The results indicate that southeastern Turkish pomegranate germplasm contains detectable genetic diversity and includes divergent accessions that may be useful for future conservation and breeding studies.