Assessment of genetic diversity of tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) by inter-simple sequence repeat polymerase chain reaction

Twenty-five diverse tea (Camellia sinensis(L.) O. Kuntze) cultivars were analyzed using the simple sequence repeat anchored polymorearse chain reaction (SSR-anchored PCR) or Inter SSR-PCR (ISSR). Out of the 45 primers 12were chosen for final study. These amplified a total of 130 bands out of which108 (84%) were polymorphic. A dendrogram was constructed using UPGMA method revealed three distinct clusters of Cambod, Assamand China type, which concur with the known taxonomical classification of tea. These results suggest that the ISSR-PCR method is potentially useful for genetic fingerprinting and molecular taxonomic classification of tea genotypes. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.