Genetic Diversity and Phytochemical Studies on Selected Ecotypes of Utasi (Gongronema latifolium) Plant Using Microsatellite Markers

Diversity and phytochemical studies were carried out on twelve ecotypes of utasi, Gongronema latifolium using simple sequence repeats markers. Screening of ten (10) trinucleotide SSR primers, produced  4 primers that were able to amplify the DNA from all the plant ecotype. A total of 34 bands were amplified from the 4 SSR primers which include SSR 2, SSR 3, SSR 1 and SSR 4. Out of the amplified products using the 4 primers, 17 were found to be polymorphic with an average of 9 bands per primer. The number of amplification products per primer ranged between 10 in SSR 4 to 12 in SSR 2 with SSR 1 having the least number of bands (1). The sequences of the 4 random primers used in this study along with the number of bands generated and the number of polymorphic bands. The results of genetic analysis of the Gongronema latifolium ecotypes delineated the 12 ecotypes into five cluster groups. Results of phytochemical analysis of leaves of Gongronema latifolium showed (Table 2) mean saponin (2.09 ±0.01%), mean tannin (1.17 ± 0.01%), mean flavonoid (2.53 ±0.01%), mean polyphenol (4.60 ± 0.01%) and mean reducing compound (7.92 ± 0.01%).The phytochemical indices of the least 1.17+ 0.01% and highest 7.92+ 0.01% were constituted by tannins and reducing compounds, respectively. Thus, the study suggested the need for future exploitation of Gongronema latifolium leaves for phytochemical contents due to their high medicinal value.