Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Brazilian Journal of Botany (2020) 43:907–920 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40415-020-00650-3 GENETICS & EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY - ORIGINAL ARTICLE The assessment of electromagnetic felds‑caused genetic diversity of Tea Camellia sinensis L. using ISSR and SCoT markers Seyed Mohammad Yousef Azizi 1  · Siavash Hosseini Sarghein 1  · Ahmad Majd 2  · Maryam Peyvandi 2 Received: 17 February 2020 / Revised: 31 August 2020 / Accepted: 1 September 2020 / Published online: 14 September 2020 © Botanical Society of Sao Paulo 2020 Abstract The efects of electromagnetic felds on plants have been studied during the last decades. The electromagnetic felds as abi- otic stress can induce genetic variation in living organisms including plants by diferent mechanisms. The aim of the present study is to assay the possible electromagnetic felds-caused genetic diversity of Tea Camellia sinensis L. which is known as favorite herbal beverages by many biochemical constituents. To do so, intersimple sequence repeats (ISSR) and start codon targeted (SCoT) loci were used as molecular markers. Diferent electromagnetic feld treatments by 1, 2, 4 and 6 mT of intensity, for 30 and 60 min per day, for 7 continuous days were imposed, following by DNA extraction and PCR amplifca- tion. AMOVA, PCoA and STRUCTURE analysis based on the ISSR and SCoT markers showed that regardless of the EMFs intensity, 30 min of radiation causes more genetic variation than that of 60 min does until the intensity was increased up to 6 mT, due to direct and indirect mechanisms such as guanine modifcation, methylation of cytosines, Fenton reaction and direct DNA strands breaking. ISSR sequences, however, underwent more variation than SCoT. Keywords Electromagnetic felds · Genetic variation · ISSR and SCoT · Molecular markers · Tea Camellia sinensis L. 1 Introduction The specie Camellia sinensis L. (Tea) is one of the most favorite herbal beverages throughout the world, origi- nated in China (Del Rio et al. 2004). The shoot part of tea contains many biochemical constituents such as phenolic components, alkaloids, vitamins and enzymes. These natu- ral substances are helpful for treating some of the human diseases (Samynathan et al. 2016). Although tea is mostly drunk for amusement, the medical benefts of this plant have been historically investigated since thousands of years ago. Camellia sinensis L. belongs to Theaceae family and has two main varieties named: C. sinensis (var. sinensis), by small- leaved and bush-like shape, distributed in Southeast of Asia; and C. sinensis (var. assamica), by large-leaved and trees like, growing in India and semi-tropical climate (Mahmood et al. 2010). Tea is mostly used as a fermented type named black tea. The unfermented type however which is known as green tea has become more favorite during the last decades (Mondal 2014). In the present study, the shoots of tea were treated by electromagnetic felds (EMFs) which have energy, and despite the aquatic waves, they can cross through the vacuum. Diferent types of electromagnetic felds and waves are present around the living organisms, by the signifcant efects of them (Tkalec et al. 2009). It has been reported that the biological efects of EMFs are presented by ther- mal and nonthermal groups. EMFs with the level of surface power density more than 10 mW/cm are considered as a thermal group, and below of this level referred to the non- thermal type, which can bring about reversible and irrevers- ible damages to the biological membranes by the dielectri- cal breakdown of phospholipid bilayer. Indeed, extremely high strength EMF induces phospholipid molecules to shift their position, following by opening a pore or breaking the membrane (Rusakova et al. 2017). EMFs as an abiotic stress * Seyed Mohammad Yousef Azizi yousef1362@gmail.com Siavash Hosseini Sarghein siavash.h24@yahoo.com Ahmad Majd a_majd@iau-tnb.ac.ir Maryam Peyvandi maryampeyvandi@yahoo.com 1 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran 2 Biology Department, Faculty of Bio Sciences, Tehran North Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran