Botanical Studies (2006) 47: 223-229.
*
Corresponding author: E-mail: hanyaoz@163.com.
INTRODUCTION
China is the world¡¦s largest producer and consumer of
tobacco. Flue-cured tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) is one
of the most important commercial crops in the world. The
results of genetic diversity study provide estimates on the
level of genetic variation among diverse materials that can
be used in germplasm management, varietal protection,
and flue-cured tobacco improvement.
Morphological, karyotypical, and physiological
characters have already been used to study the genetic
diversity of flue-cured tobacco germplasm (Goodspeed,
1945; Zhang, 1994; Lei et al., 1997; Lu, 1997). However,
morphological characters usually vary with environments.
The number of karyotypical characters is limited, and the
study of genotypic diversity based on isozyme variation is
restricted to a few polymorphic enzyme systems encoded
by a small number of loci (Lu, 1997). These methods
have been improved greatly by new molecular marker
techniques such as simple sequence length polymorphism
(SSLP), restriction fragment length polymorphism
(RFLP), randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD),
sequence characterized amplified regions (SCAR),
and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP)
(Botstein et al., 1980; Jarman and Wells, 1989; Williams
et al., 1990; Williams et al., 1991; Vos et al., 1995).
The AFLP technique allows the identification of a
greater number of polymorphisms than RFLP or RAPD
analysis. This technique is easy to perform compared to
RFLP, reproducible, and requires only small amounts
of DNA. Furthermore, it is a reliable and efficient DNA
marker system that has been extensively used for genetic
diversity study in different plant species (Maughan et
al., 1996; Ellis et al., 1997; Breyne et al., 1999; Erschadi
et al., 2000; De Riek et al., 2001). We employed the
Amplified Fragment Length DNA Polymorphism (AFLP)
technique to clarify the genetic relationships between
51 distinct flue-cured tobacco accessions with desirable
agronomic characteristics from the germplasm collections
of the South China Tobacco Breeding Research Center.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Genetic diversity among flue-cured tobacco (Nicotiana
tabacum L.) revealed by amplified fragment length
polymorphism
Han-Yao ZHANG
1,2,
*, Xiao-Zhen LIU
1
, Tong-Sen LI
1
, and Yu-Ming YANG
1
1
Department of Forestry, Southwest Forestry College, White Dragon Temple, Kunming, Yunnan Province 650224, People's
Republic of China
2
College of Agronomy, South China University of Tropic Agriculture, Dangzhao, Hainan 571737, People¡¦s Republic of
China
(Received August 9, 2004; Accepted January 13, 2005)
ABSTRACT.
Flue-cured tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) is one of the most important commercial
crops in the world. Genetic diversity studies provide estimates on the level of genetic variation among
diverse materials that can be used in germplasm management, varietal protection, and flue-cured tobacco
improvement. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis of 51 flue-cured tobacco cultivars
produced a tota l of 1479 unambiguous DNA fragments. Cluster a nalyses using the unweighted pair group
method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) showed that the cultivars could be grouped into American or
Chinese types, with the Chinese types being further clustered into four subgroups and American ones into
two subgroups. The average pairwise genetic distance was 0.167 and ranged from 0.024 to 0.267. AMOVA
analysis showed that 55.76% of genetic variation came from cultivars having different origins and 44.24%
from cultivars having the same origin. The overall average Fst of the 51 accessions was 0.177. Mean Fst
of each accession against the rest ranged from 0.152 to 0.238. The findings of this study revealed that the
present day commonly grown flue-cured tobacco germplasm has narrow genetic diversity among the cultivars,
necessitating a sustained effort to preserve flue-cured tobacco germplasm resources. Further crosses should be
made only with genetically distant varieties.
Keywords: AFLP analysis; AMOVA; Flue-cured tobacco; Genetic diversity; UPGMA.