Genetic diversity and population structure analysis of Paris polyphylla Sm revealed by SSR marker

Abstract

Abstract Paris polyphylla is a threatened medicinal plant with numerous pharmacological effects including prized anticancer phytochemicals. In the present study, the genetic diversity, and population structure of 32 P. polyphylla germplasm collected from natural habitats of three ecological regions Central, Eastern, and Western Nepal was performed using 15 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The polymorphic information content (PIC) value of the SSR marker ranged from 0 to 0.75. The value of the average observed heterozygosity (Ho = 0.63) is greater than the expected heterozygosity (He = 0.53) with average total heterozygosity (Ht = 0.32). The molecular variance analysis (AMOVA) revealed high genetic variation within the population (74%) than low genetic variance (26%) among populations. The value of Fst and gene flow were 0.53 and 0.458, respectively. In STRUCTURE analysis 32 germplasm were separated into two populations where Eastern accessions were separated far from Central and western accessions which were also in complete correspondence to the unweighted pair group method based on arithmetic average (UPGMA) phylogenetic tree and principle coordinate (PCoA) analysis. Further, in the UPGMA and PCoA, accessions collected from the same or relatively similar geographic origin were closer. These genetic results are of great significance for scientifically formulating conservation strategies and commercial cultivation for the medicinally important Vernalable plant P. polyphylla.