Introduction: Rapeseed (Brassica napus) is cultivated as a valuable oilseed plant around the world. Knowledge of the distribution of genotypes plays an important role in determining their conservation method. Rapid Amplification Polymorphism DNA (RAPD) as an inexpensive and fast method and no need for basic genome information, is one of the most widely used molecular markers in determining phylogenetic relationships and differentiation of different animal and plant species. Materials & Methods: Twenty-five important rapeseed genotypes were collected from different parts of the country and after soil preparation; they were planted in greenhouse conditions in a completely randomized design with three replications. In order to investigate the genetic diversity, after extracting DNA from leaves, polymerase chain reaction was performed using RAPD primers. The distinct and reproducible bands of each marker were scored as either (present) or (absent).The number and percentage of polymorphic loci, Nei's genetic similarity coefficient among various material, Nei's genetic diversity index, effective number of allele and Shannon information index was then analyzed by POPGEN V1.31 software. The corresponding cluster analysis was performed using the unweight pair Group method with Arithmetic Average (UPGMA) by NTSYS V2.02 software. Results: Eighty-three polymorphic bands were amplified, the highest and lowest number of polymorphic bands were observed in primer number 6 and primers number 5 and 8, respectively. The polymorphic information content (PIC) was varied from 0.21 to 0.51 and the Nei,s genetic diversity was varied from 0.2 to 0.36. Cluster analysis using UPGMA method and Jacquard coefficient with cofenetic correlation of 0.67 divided the genotypes into three separate groups. Genotypes placed in groups 1 and 3 are spring and winter cultivars, respectively. The majority of the genotypes belongs to group2 (84%) originate from France, Germany, Australia, Iran and Serbia. The lowest genetic distance was observed between Alenso and Nataly genotypes. The principlecoordinate analysis showed that the first and second components explained the 81.02% of the obtained diversity, which indicates the appropriate distribution of the studied primers on the genome.Cluster analysis using UPGMA method divided these genotypes into four separate groups. The correlation between the two traits, number of days to flowering and number of days until the emergence of the stem, was equal to 1, positive and significant at the 1% probability level. Conclusion: Since the Zorica cultivar has high seed and oil yield, this genotype can be used in crossbreeding programs with Iranian cultivars.
Abdoli Nasab M. Evaluation of Genetic Diversity and Grouping of Rapeseed Cultivars using Molecular Markers. Journalaer 2025; 1 (2) :59-68 URL: http://journalaer.com/article-1-132-en.html