Biologia 66/2: 244—250, 2011 Section Botany DOI: 10.2478/s11756-011-0006-5 Identification and assessment of genetic relationships in three Chlorophytum species and two high yielding genotypes of C. borivilianum through RAPD markers Sanghamitra Samantaray*, Tarun Kumar Patel, K.A. Geetha & Satyabrata Maiti Directorate of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research, Boriavi, Anand-387310, Gujarat, India; e-mail: smitralok@rediffmail.com, smitraray@gmail.com Abstract: Conservation of identified germplasm is an important component for efficient and effective management of plant genetic resources. Since Chlorophytum species are important medicinal plants, studies were carried out for identification and establish genetic relationships in three species of Chlorophytum and two high yielding genotypes of Chlorophtum borivilianum using RAPD markers. Out of one hundred primers tested, 47 decamers amplified a total of 454 distinct bands ranging from 0.25–3.0 kbp to identify and to evaluate genetic relationships between and among three species of Chlorophytum and two genotypes of Chlorophtum borivilianum. The cluster analysis indicated that three species of Chlorophytum and two genotypes (NRCCB-1 and NRCCB-2) of C. borivilianum formed two major clusters. The first major cluster constituted C. arundinaceum and C. tuberosum, and the second major cluster composed of two subclusters; the first subcluster represented NRCB-1 and NRCB-2 where as the second subcluster represented C. borivilianum. Thus, the RAPD markers have the potential for identification and characterization of genetic relatedness among the species and genotypes. C. borivilianum along with two genotypes also showed similar banding patterns which could be chosen as candidate markers for differentiating the other two species such as C. arundinaceum and C. tuberosum. This would helpful for breeding programmes and provides an important input in conservation biology. Key words: Chlorophytum; RAPD; similarity index Introduction In the recent years there has been renewed interest in natural medicines as pharmaceutical industries depend in part on plants for the production of secondary com- pounds. The genus Chlorophytum belonging to family Liliaceae is comprised of about 75 species of peren- nial, rhizomatous herb, distributed in tropical and sub- tropical regions of the world (Kirtikar & Basu 1994 ) out of which 17 species are found in India (Anonymous 1992). Chlorophytum arundinaceum (Roxb.) Baker, C. borivilianum Santapau and Fernandes and C. tubero- sum Baker are grouped under one trade name of safed musli which is used extensively in ayurvedic medicine (Bordia et al. 1995).The tuberous roots of C. arundi- naceum is especially used in the treatment of rheuma- tism and the roots constitute the drug is considered as a valuable nervine and general tonic for strength and vigour (Anonymous 1992). Moreover, its active constituents especially steroidal sapogenins (Tandon & Shukla 1993) are known to possess adoptogenic and aphrodisiac attributes. The peeled and dried fascicu- lated roots of C. borivilianum are considered a wonder drug in traditional Indian systems of medicine due to its aphrodisiac and natural tonic properties (Singh & Chauhan 2003). It is also used for treatment of cer- tain diseases like rheumatism, renal calculus and leu- corrhoea. It is lactating, energetic to heart. Tuberous roots are having great medicinal value containing the steroidal sapogenin (1–2%), proteins (10–12%) and cal- cium (Pullioh 2006). The tuberous roots of C. tubero- sum are reported to be used as a non-hormonal restora- tive tonic for men and women. It is also used as a gen- eral purpose tonic against fatigue, weakness and general debility. The tuberous roots are reported for the treat- ment of leucorrhoea (Pullioh 2006). Being the source of food and medicine against a spectrum of ailments, the wild populations of these species have been severely eroded due to overexploitation for which conservation of the species is necessitated. The most important role of conservation is to pre- serve genetic variation and evolutionary processes in vi- able populations of ecologically important species in or- der to prevent potential extinction (Soule & Simberloff 1986). Evaluation of the genetic relationship among species is also important for the sustainable conserva- tion and increased use of plant genetic resources. Tradi- tionally, morphological characters have been used to de- * Corresponding author c 2011 Institute of Botany, Slovak Academy of Sciences