Genetic relationships among annual and perennial wild species of Cicer using inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) polymorphism

Wild Cicer germplasm is known to have genes for disease resistance, stress tolerance and other important traits, and hence could be exploited for improving cultivated genotypes. However, only few Cicer species are interfertile and it is essential to overcome crossability barriers to utilize the germplasm more effectively. Genetic diversity analysis of Cicer species can give important clues in understanding species relationships and may assist in developing and planning breeding strategies. We selected 6 annual and 7 perennial wild species, which were amplified using 15 ISSR primers and UPGMA and AMOVA were used to evaluate the genetic diversity. On an average, 6.6 polymorphic bands per primer were observed. Cluster analysis using the UPGMA algorithm indicated three major groups of species at the similarity value of 0.60 with many subclusters. The clustering pattern was in agreement with the data based on crossability, seed storage protein, isozyme, allozyme and RAPD marker analysis. The among-population component of annual and perennial groups calculated using AMOVA accounted for 39.00%. Our results suggested that wild annuals of Cicer were not monophyletic in nature.