Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Zygophyllum species are succulent plants that are drought resistant and/or salt tolerant, growing under severe, dry climatic conditions. There is little information concerning molecular variations among species of this genus. Genetic diversity was assessed, using RAPD primers, of 6 populations collected from various locations in Saudi Arabia. Yong leaves were used for DNA extraction. Molecular taxonomy for these studied plants were performed by Polymerase Chain Reaction- Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA (PCR-RAPD). RAPD reactions are PCR reactions, but they amplify segments of DNA which are essentially unknown to the scientist (random). PCR was used to amplify a known sequence of DNA. Thus, we choose the sequence we wants to amplify, then designed and makes primers which will anneal to sequences flanking the sequence of interest. Thus, PCR leads to the amplification of a particular segment of DNA. The obtained dendrogram from our results was based on Nie’s UPGMA cluster analysis of the genetic differences. These results revealed that the obtained dendrogram based, Z. simplex represents the closest relationship with Z. migahidii. Phylogenetic distances show that F. glutinosa and F. indica are far from T. terrestris and T. macropterus and also, has completely different pattern of RAPD profiles compare to other samples.