Abstract:

【Objective】 Genetic polymorphism of tea germplasms from Fujian, China and their relationships were analyzed so as to offer some information to be used in genetic improvement and parental selection in tea breeding programs. 【Method】 The 26 pairs of EST-SSR primers, including 23 newly derived by the authors and 3 from previous references, were used to analyze the 42 tea accessions from Fujian, China. Based on EST-SSR data, a dendrogram was constructed using UPGMA method. 【Result】 Totally 86 alleles were amplified using the 26 EST-SSR primers, the number of alleles per primer ranged from 2 to 5, with an average of 3.31. The polymorphism information content (PIC) varied from 0.05 to 0.75, with an average of 0.56. The expected heterozygosity (He) varied from 0.02 to 0.81 and the observed heterozygosity (Ho) ranged from 0.02 to 0.97, with an average of 0.60 and 0.55, respectively. The Shannon index of the Fujian tea population was 1.16. The 42 accessions were classified into 2 groups based on the similarity coefficient at 0.40. 【Conclusion】 The results show that the genetic polymorphism of tea germplasms in Fujian is relatively abundant, and the relationships among the 42 accessions are clearly defined.

Key words: Fujian, tea plant, EST-SSR, genetic relationship, genetic polymorphism