Identifying plant species and assessing variability, is often difficult if only morphological traits are analyzed. This statement is also valid in the case of thyme. For this reason, it is necessary to expand research in the field of biochemical and DNA analysis. The aim of this paper was to investigate the possibilities of using ScoT markers to assess diversity in different wild thymus genotypes. Therefore, 13 spontaneously ecotypes of Thymus collected from the western part of Romania were analyzed with 4 ScoT (Start Codon Targeted) markers (Scot 11, Scot 14, Scot 35 and Scot 36), compared to a cultivated genotype. The plants were collected from their natural habitat and the DNA was extracted from fresh leaves, based on CTAB method. ScoT primers were used because they combine the advantages of random amplification, which gives them a general character with the evaluation of coding chromosomal areas. Thus, 117 alleles were amplified, with an average of 29.25 alleles/primer. All bands were polymorphic and the analysis of the variance showed an average PIC (polymorphism information content) of 0.370 and an average polymorphic index (PI) of 10.57, which places the analyzed markers in the category of highly polymorphic, with increased discrimination power. Therefore, it has been shown that the assessment of variability and the establishment of similarity indices in Thymus using ScoT markers is possible and can be the basis for complex molecular genetic analysis. The four used primers generated complex DNA fingerprints, in which all bands were polymorphic, therefore no band was common to all analyzed ecotypes. The data obtained allowed the elaboration of a dendrogram that groups the analyzed ecotypes according to the similarity index. It has been shown that the assessment of variability and the establishment of similarity indices in Thymus using ScoT markers is possible and can be the basis of complex molecular genetic analysis.

Thymus, ScoT markers, variability, dendrogram

biology

Presentation: poster