Genetic diversity and relationships among Glaucium (Papaveraceae) species by ISSR Markers: A high value medicinal plant

Glaucium Mill. (horned poppy), belonging to the family Papaveraceae, is represented by a total of 25 species worldwide, and especially distributed throughout Western, Northern and Eastern Asia, Europe, Northern Africa, and Australia. As a country, Iran harbors relatively more species of the genus Glaucium (11-13 species) and hence, this country is considered as the hot spot of the genus. As a result, we conducted a molecular analysis of the data for this genus due to the relevance of these species of plants. We employed 75 plants from seven species and seven provinces that were randomly picked for this investigation. Five primers were used to amplify genomic DNA, yielding 78 bands, 73 of which were polymorphic (97.78%). ISSR primers have a great capability to recognise polymorphic loci among Glaucium species, as evidenced by the high average PIC and MI values obtained. The genetic similarity of seven samples was calculated to be between 0.77 and 0.92. Glaucium corniculatum var. corniculatum and Glaucium elegans var. elegans showed the lowest similarity, while Glaucium oxylobum and Glaucium grandiflorum had the highest similarity, according to Inter-Simple sequence repeats (ISSR) markers analysis. The following are the study’s goals: 1) Is it possible to identify Glaucium species using ISSR markers? 2) In Iran, how are these taxa genetically structured? 3) what is the inter-species relationship? According to this study, ISSR markers can be utilized to distinguish species.