Genetic variability of Polish and Russian accessions of cultivated blue honeysuckle (Lonicera caerulea).

Inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) amplification was used to analyze polymorphisms of microsatellite sequences in the honeysuckle genome and to evaluate genetic diversity among fourteen Polish and Russian blue honeysuckle accessions (Lonicera caerulea var. edulis, L. caerulea no. 7661, L. caerulea no. 7987, Jolanta, Atut, Wojtek, Czarna, Zielona, Dlinnoplodna, Czelabinka, Signoglazka, N1, N2 and A). The plant material was selected from the Department of Pomology, the Dendrological Garden in Rogowo (Poland), and breeder collections. A total of 40 primers, containing different simple sequence repeat motifs, were tested for amplification. Out of the 40 primers, only 11 gave interpretable banding patterns in all blue honeysuckle accessions. A total of 129 ISSR loci were amplified, of which 83 (64%) were polymorphic and 24 (19%) accession-specific. ISSR-PCR with genomic DNA from blue honeysuckle yielded DNA fragments ranging from 260 to 3250 bp in size. UPGMA cluster analysis with bootstrapping (1.000 replications) and used to construct a dendrogram and to estimate the genetic distances between Lonicera accessions. The ISSR-based phylogeny was consistent with Lonicera caerulea origin based on morphological and phenological evidence. The phylogenetic relationships based on the accession studies and the breeding usefulness are discussed.