Chemical and molecular characterisation of Artemisia annua L. genotypes grown under Tarai conditions of Uttrakhand

Artemisia annua L. is an important medicinal plant belonging to the family Asteraceae having potential value as a source of artemisinin and essential oils. Artemisinin, a secondary plant product has been found to have strong anti-malarial properties with little or no side effects. Considering the importance of plant against malaria, present investigation was conducted to study various morphotypes of A. annua growing in Tarai areas of Uttarakhand by characterizing them using chemical and molecular determinants. Chemical characterization was done by preparative TLC. The percent artemisinin ranged from 0.39% (dry wt) to 0.78% (dry wt) in P.A-IV (S.P.C.) and P.A-I (I.D.F. Nagla) respectively. Further, twelve populations of three high yielding morphotypes of Artemisia annua were selected for studying genetic variation using 16 random decamer primers. The RAPD profiles for all 12 populations showed an average of 10.375 fragments per primer in the size-range of 326–1354 bp. A total of 166 bands with 122 polymorphic and 44 monomorphic were obtained by these primers. A maximum of 29 bands were observed with primer PR-6. Some primers also produced unique alleles (15) in specific genotypes which could be used to distinguish them. Based on RAPD profiles, 12 populations were categorized into two major clusters with 35 to 79% similarities. Cluster I comprised of 9 populations while cluster II comprised only 3. Population 11 and 12 showed highest degree of similarity (78%) with each other.