Morphological and molecular characterization of endangered medicinal plant species Coleus forskohlii collected from central India

In recent years, Coleus forskohlii has been considered plant as an important medicinal. Because of the continuous collection of roots from the wild sources, this plant has been included in the list of endangered species. This has necessitated the use of biotechnology in conservation and sustainable management of this endangered plant species. Morphological and molecular characterization of this herb will enhance our understanding in improving the optimal yields of Forskolin through breeding. To assess the morphological and molecular genetic diversity in 18 C. forskohlii genotypes collected from different places of central India, RAPD, ISSR, and AFLP marker systems were employed. Eleven RAPD, ten ISSRs and eight AFLP primers produced 101, 80, and 483 fragments, respectively. Among the three marker system used in this study, RAPD and ISSR showed 61.39 and 68.75% polymorphism, respectively, while eight AFLP primer combinations produced 70.81% polymorphism. UPGMA cluster analysis method group genotypes in two clusters with all marker systems separately and after combined analysis. Results show that both morphological and molecular factors are effective in observing variations. Our results also indicate that the RAPD, ISSR, and AFLP approaches, along with pharmaceutically important morphological trait analysis, seemed to be best-suited for assessing the genetic relationships among distinct C. Forskohlii genotypes with high accuracy.