Genetic fidelity assessment of micropropagated Lycium truncatum Y.C.Wang, the Mongolian rare shrub, using RAPD and ISSR markers

<jats:p>Lycium truncatum Y.C.Wang is a medicinal and environmentally valuable shrub belonging to the family of Solanaceae. Due to desertification, prolonged drought, overgrazing, and mining activities, it has been listed as a rare shrub in the Mongolian Red Book and the Checklist of Native Vascular Plants of Mongolia. To establish an initial report on the genetic fidelity assessment of micropropagated L. truncatum, two-DNA-based techniques, Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) marker analysis were performed. The plantlets were micropropagated on DKW medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/L kinetin (Kin) and 0.1 mg/L naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), and acclimatised in the culture room (ex vitro) after hardening off in a peat moss (2:1) mixture. A total of 10 RAPD and 10 ISSR primers were used in the present study; 14 primers produced clear and scorable amplicons. RAPD analysis generated a total of 37 bands, of which 30 (81.1%) were monomorphic. The percentage of polymorphism was low, with 18.9% polymorphism among all samples. The similarity coefficient was between 0.90 and 0.91 between the hardened plants and between the wild type. ISSR analysis revealed a total of 52 bands, of which 31 (59.6%) were monomorphic. The percentage of polymorphism was 40.4% for all samples. The similarity coefficient ranged from 0.77 to 0.83, while the mean similarity between the two primer sets was 0.84 to 0.87. The result could provide the theoretical basis for a large-scale micropropagation protocol of L. truncatum.</jats:p>