Diversity of tea (Camellia sinensis) grown in Vietnam based on morphological characteristics and inter-primer binding sites (iPBS) marker

Abstract

Six iBPS primers and twenty-one morphological traits were used to assess the genetic diversity and relationships of 15 tea [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] accessions grown in Vietnam. The similarity index matrix generated from Dice coefficient (iPBS analysis) and the dissimilarity index matrix generated from Euclidian distance coefficient (morphological analysis) were used to build the respective un-weighted pair group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) derived-dendrograms revealing the genetic relationships among the tested tea accessions. The iPBS analysis showed a slightly different result as compared to the result of morphological analysis which indicated that the group of Shan and Assam type were separate from the group of China type and the hybrids related to China type. Meanwhile, the iPBS analysis clustered 15 tea genotypes into two main groups; the tea genotypes of small leaved China, Assam-small leaved China hybrid and Shan-large leaved China hybrid type, with small leaf size, came together into one group; the other one was mainly nested by the tea genotypes of Shan, Assam and Shan-small leaved China type, with large leaf size. However, the iPBS analysis also shared the same basic agreements with the morphological analysis. All the tea genotypes, which originated from the same parents or the same type of crossing parental couple, revealed close relatedness. The results of morphological analysis are conformable with the conventional classification of tea taxa and give basic relative information among 15 tea genotypes to demonstrate particularly the result of molecular analysis. It could be concluded that iPBS is a useful DNA based-marker for evaluation of genetic diversity and relationships of tea.