GENETIC DIVERSITY IN FICUS SYCOMORUS L. SPECIES (MORACEAE) USING RAPD AND IRAP MARKERS

This study was conducted in order to assess accuracy, repeatability and reproducibility of the RAPD and IRAP techniques for determining the genetic variability in 10 Ficus sycomorus L. genotypes grown in the coastal regions of Syria. Thirty-six RAPD primers applied gave 352 discernible loci, of which 252 (71.59%) were polymorphic. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification with 36 RAPD primers gave an average of 9.778 selected markers/primers, with a maximum of 21 (OPA18) and a minimum of five (OPG11, OPK12 and OPT18). The amplification with 22 IRAP primers (single or combination) generated 178 bands, of which 151 (84.83%) were polymorphic, with an average of 11.125 selected markers/ primer, with a maximum of 17 (IRAP-TDK11F) and a minimum of seven (BREP1F+BREP1R, IRAP-TDK1F+IRAP- TDK1R and IRAP-TDK2F+IRAP-TDK2R). In the present investigation, the IRAP marker was more efficient than the RAPD assay, where the latter exhibited a lower marker index (MI) average (1.629) compared with the IRAP technique (2.941). Otherwise, F. sycomor4 genotype showed the highest dissimilarity compared with other genotypes studied in this investigation. Based upon the estimated percent disagreement values (PDV), we can suggest that there are three subspecies present among the 10 samples tested.