Molecular characterization of India Ginseng Withania somnifera (L) using ISSR markers.

Background: Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal), popularly known as Indian ginseng or winter cherry is a multipurpose plant of immense therapeutic value in the ayurvedic and indigenous medicine system and distributed in wide geographic locations and exhibiting extensive phenotypic and chemical variability.

Methods And Results: The present study was carried out to assess the molecular genetic diversity among 4 CIMAP varieties and five local cultivars of ashwagandha and cluster dendrograms were created by using 20 ISSR primers. A total of 224 bands of varied length were produced, out of which 193 (86.1%) products were polymorphic and 31 (13.8%) products were monomorphic. Where each ISSR arbitrary primer had 5-16 valuable bands with an average of 11.2 bands per primer, of which 86.16% bands were polymorphic. The PIC values ranged from 0.16 to 0.36 with an average PIC value of 0.29 and RP values ranged from 2.22 to 7.99. The UPGMA cluster analysis of 20 ISSR primers grouped the nine accessions into 2 major clusters. The first and second major cluster consists of seven and two accessions respectively.

Conclusion: Therefore, this study provides evidence that ISSR based molecular diversity assessment can be used as an efficient tool for detecting similarity and phylogenetic relationships among genotypes of Withania somnifera collected from different geographical locations. This information can be used to improve root and other characteristics of ashwagandha genotypes and there is also scope for the development of high-yielding varieties by selecting diverse parents for crossing (based on the molecular diversity) from the present accessions.