Abstract

AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) marker system is a reliable method in the evaluation of genetic diversity among different species. It was used to explore phenetic relationships and diversity within and between 13 Malvaceae species belonging to 5 different genera. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the taxonomic potential, usefulness and applicability of AFLP marker system to reconstruct genetic relationships at interspecific and intergeneric level in Malvaceae. In total, 28 accessions comprising 13 species were included in the study but for assorted technical reasons five profiles remained incomplete or with ambiguous banding pattern. Therefore 23 accessions comprising 12 species were included in the final analysis. Two primer pairs produced a total of 73 bands, of which 70 were polymorphic. Neighbor Joining (NJ) tree showed that all 23 accessions were basically classified in three main clusters and several sub-clusters. The tree had well supported branches especially at the level of accessions and species. However, it also had poor bootsrap support at some intermediate and deeper branches. The informative value of the technique was evaluated by comparing the current results with earlier morphological and molecular investigations. Despite some poorly supported parts of the tree, most of the topologies established were in general congruence with earlier studies revealing that AFLP is a robust and reliable tool for DNA fingerprinting and detecting genetic relationships in Malvaceae at different taxonomic levels.

Key words: AFLP, Malvaceae, DNA fingerprinting.