Assessment of phytochemical and genetic diversity analysis of Plumbago zeylanica L. accessions

Selection of elite accessions is important to get the maximum quantity of bioactive compounds in medicinal plants. In this study, thirteen accessions of Plumbago zeylanica L., a medicinal herb, was studied for phytochemical and genetic diversity analysis. Phytochemical analysis showed that accession number IC-524441 contains the highest amount of flavonoids, phenolic, tannin and plumbagin content, it also possesses maximum antioxidant activity. Genetic diversity analysis showed that 15 SCoT (Start codon targeted) and 20 CBDP (CAAT Box Derived Polymorphism) primers produced 86 and 110 amplicons in total and average were 5.73 and 5.5 amplicons/primer respectively. PIC values ranged from 0.12 to 0.37 and average is 0.25/primer in the case of SCoT marker whereas, in the case of CBDP marker it was 0.15 to 0.59 with average of 0.26/primer. Cluster analysis showed that SCoT marker provides three clusters where cluster 1 and cluster 2 have only 2 accessions while cluster 3 contains nine accessions. Similarly, CBDP marker provides three clusters where cluster 1 contains only 1 accession and cluster 2 and cluster 3 contains six accessions in each. Further AMOVA analysis of SCoT marker possesses maximum variation of 8% among agro-ecological regions whereas in case of CBDP marker its 5%. From the present investigation, it was found that IC-524441 is an elite accession and contains highest amount of bioactive compound. Our results also demonstrate that both SCoT and CBDP markers are informative and can be utilized for evaluation of genetic relationships among Plumbago zeylanica L. accessions.