Development of Reproducible EST-derived SSR Markers and Assessment of Genetic Diversity in Panax ginseng Cultivars and Related Species

Little is known about the genetics or genomics of Panax ginseng. In this study, we developed 70 expressed sequence tag-derived polymorphic simple sequence repeat markers by trials of 140 primer pairs. All of the 70 markers showed reproducible polymorphism among four Panax species and 19 of them were polymorphic in six P ginseng cultivars. These markers segregated 1:2:1 manner of Mendelian inheritance in an F-2 population of a cross between two P ginseng cultivars, 'Yunpoong' and 'Chunpoong', indicating that these are reproducible and inheritable mappable markers. A phylogenetic analysis using the genotype data showed three distinctive groups: a P ginseng-P. japonicus clade, P notoginseng and P quinquefolius, with similarity coefficients of 0.70. P. japonicus was intermingled with P ginseng cultivars, indicating that both species have similar genetic backgrounds. P ginseng cultivars were subdivided into three minor groups: an independent cultivar 'Chunpoong', a subgroup with three accessions including two cultivars, 'Gumpoong' and 'Yunpoong' and one landrace 'Hwangsook' and another subgroup with two accessions including one cultivar, 'Gopoong' and one landrace 'Jakyung'. Each primer pair produced 1 to 4 bands, indicating that the ginseng genome has a highly replicated paleopolyploid genome structure.