Assessment of genetic diversity among accessions of two traditional leafy vegetables (Acmella uliginosa (L.) and Justicia tenella (Nees) T.) consumed in Benin using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers

Abstract

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers were used to evaluate the genetic diversity and explore the genetic relationship among accessions of Acmella uliginosa and Justicia tenella, two leaf vegetables collected from different areas in the northwest and northeast parts of Benin (West Africa). The total number of exploitable amplicons revealed with genomic DNA from A. uliginosa was 224 with an average of 50.5% polymorphic amplicons. Using DNA from J. tenella, we obtained 34% of polymorphic amplicons from a total of 418. The coefficient of dissimilarity varied from 0.01 to 0.67 and from 0.17 to 0.62 for Acmella and Justicia, respectively. Low genetic diversity was observed among Acmella accessions although three distinct clusters could be differentiated. Contrarily, a great genetic diversity was observed among J. tenella accessions. In addition to this, most of the clusters were heterogeneous and showed the relationship between accessions collected from northeast and northwest. Our results confirm the robustness of AFLP techniques for genetic diversity studies and they provide the first set of molecular data for these two species.

Key words: Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), genetic diversity, leafy vegetable, Benin.