Genetic diversity analysis of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) germplasm using molecular markers

Bitter gourd [Momordica charantia L.] is an important cucurbitaceous crop of medicinal and nutraceutical value. The present study was conducted to compare the efficacy of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR) molecular markers for genetic diversity analysis of bitter gourd. Twenty-one genotypes of bitter gourd, collected from different parts of India, were used for diversity analysis using two different types of markers. RAPD and ISSR markers yielded an average of 7.16 and 5.73 amplicon per primer, respectively. In the present study, RAPD and ISSR showed 89 and 63% polymorphic bands, respectively. Combined data analysis of RAPD and ISSR markers provided 73.66% polymorphism with 5.33 polymorphic amplicons per primer. The better discriminatory power of ISSR markers over RAPD markers may be due to comparatively higher values of average polymorphic information content (0.175) as well as the diverse nature of the genotypes. The information generated in this study would be helpful in designing breeding strategies for bitter gourd improvement.