Yun Yang¹ , Junwen Chen¹ , Ming Zhao¹ , Cuiting Li¹ , Zhengui Meng¹ , Jianjun Wang¹ , Zhongjian Chen² , Guanghui Zhang¹ , Shengchao Yang¹

1. Yunnan Research Center on Good Agricultural Practice for Dominant Chinese Medicinal Materials, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming 650201, Yunnan, People's Republic of China
2. Institute of Panax notoginseng, Wenshan University, Wenshan 663000, Yunnan, People's Republic of China
Author    Correspondence author
Molecular Plant Breeding, 2013, Vol. 4, No. 21   doi: 10.5376/mpb.2013.04.0021
Received: 17 May, 2013    Accepted: 10 Jun., 2013    Published: 18 Jun., 2013

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Yang et al., 2013, Phenotypic and genetic uniformity in three populations of Panax notoginseng by mass selection, Molecular Plant Breeding, Vol.4, No.21 169-176 (doi: 10.5376/mpb.2013.04.0021)

Aim: Panax notoginseng is an important traditional Chinese medicinal plant. Although the species has been cultivated for more than 400 years, a certified variety is still not available. Natural populations (NP) exhibit high levels of morphological variation and genetic diversity, suggesting that mass selection may be used to improve P. notoginseng. In previous studies, we established 38 mass selection populations based on certain morphological traits (target characters) and eliminated undesirable individuals over five successive generations. The objective of the present study was to evaluate phenotypic and genetic uniformity of three of these populations: purple-stem (PSP), green-stem (GSP), and erect-type (ETP) populations. Methods: To assess phenotypic uniformity, 12 morphological traits were measured in NP and the three selected populations. Genetic uniformity of these four populations was also evaluated using inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Results: Phenotypic uniformity was only exhibited with respect to target characters, including stem color in PSP and GSP, and petiole-peduncle angle in ETP. Average coefficients of variation detected for most non-target characters in PSP, GSP, and ETP were similar or higher to those of NP. When these four populations were analyzed using 129 ISSR markers, the percentage of polymorphic bands detected was 72.27% in PSP, 76.40% in GSP, 58.34% in ETP, and 76.23% in NP. Genetic identities (I) in PSP, GSP, and ETP were 0.9058, 0.8663, and 0.8703, respectively, with a value greater than 0.7814 in NP. Conclusion: Mass selection is an efficient way to improve target characters and genetic uniformity in P. notoginseng. Nevertheless, selection of specific individuals exhibiting comprehensive phenotypic traits may be necessary to accelerate the breeding process.

Panax notoginseng; Mass selection; Phenotypic uniformity; Genetic identity; ISSR