Genetic variability and structure of Quercus brantii assessed by ISSR, IRAP and SCoT markers.

Persian oak (Quercus brantii Lindl.) is one of the most important woody species of the Zagros forests in Iran. Three molecular marker techniques: start codon targeted (SCoT), inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and inter-retrotransposon amplified polymorphism (IRAP) markers were compared for fingerprinting of 125 individuals of this species collected from different geographical locations of north-west of Iran. A total of 233 bands were amplified by 18 ISSR primers, of which 224 (96.10%) were polymorphic, and 126 polymorphic bands (97.65%) were observed in 129 bands amplified by 10 IRAP primers. Besides, 118 bands were observed for all 10 SCoT primers, of which 113 were polymorphic (95.71%). Average polymorphism information content (PIC) for ISSR, IRAP and SCoT markers was 0.30, 0.32 and 0.38, respectively, and this revealed that SCoT markers were more informative than IRAP and ISSR for the assessment of diversity among individuals. Based on the three different molecular types, cluster analysis revealed that 125 individuals taken for the analysis can be divided into three distinct clusters. The Jaccard's genetic similarity based on the combined data ranged from 0.23 to 0.76. These results suggest that efficiency of SCoT, IRAP and ISSR markers was relatively the same in fingerprinting of individuals. All molecular marker types revealed a low genetic differentiation among populations, indicating the possibility of gene flow between the studied populations. These results have an important implication for Persian oak (Q. brantii) germplasm characterization, improvement, and conservation.