Genetic diversity among <Emphasis Type="Italic">Brenneria nigrifluens</Emphasis> strains in Iran

To investigate the variability of Brenneria nigrifluens, the casual agent of shallow bark canker of Persian walnut (Juglans regia L.), a collection of 24 strains isolated from five geographic regions, was analyzed by means of three marker systems, repetitive polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR), insertion sequence (IS50)-PCR and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). Cluster analysis was performed using UPGMA. Strains were differentiated into 6 groups at about 80% similarity according to geographic regions. This is possibly due to cultivation of Persian walnut being mainly based on the ecotype and/or local seedlings that have become adapted to particular environments and so have allowed selection of different B. nigrifluens populations. The results of this study showed that the four rep-PCR primers produced 75 products of which 73.3% were polymorphic, eight RAPD primers produced 146 fragments of which 74.6% were polymorphic and IS50 produced 32 fragments of which 93.75% were polymorphic. The usefulness of each system was examined in terms of polymorphism information content (PIC) and marker index (MI). The highest MI was observed for IS50-PCR (21.11) followed by RAPD (7.85), and rep-PCR (6.92). The Mantel test identified significant correlation between the similarity coefficients calculated from them. Among the molecular markers tested, IS50-PCR appears to be a more suitable marker for fingerprinting and assessing genetic relationships among B. nigrifluens strains. This is the first study on genetic diversity of B. nigrifluens. The results can have a bearing on the choice of disease management strategies.