Analysis of diversity and relationships among Chinese orchid cultivars using EST-SSR markers

Chinese orchid (Cymbidium spp.) is an important potted flower with extremely high ornamental value in China. It is important to identify the genetic diversity of its germ plasma resources for development and evaluation of its cultivars. A set of 13 expressed sequence tag (EST)-derived simple sequence repeat (SSR) was used to analyze 103 cultivars of six species of Chinese orchid, namely Cymbidium goeringii, C. faberi, Cymbidium ensifolium, C. kanran, C. sinense and C. goeringii var. longibracteatum. The 13 SSR primer pairs generated a total of 168 polymorphic bands, with an average of 12.92 bands per primer and a range of 6–24 bands which clearly revealed the difference between cultivars inter- or intra-species of Chinese orchid. Cluster analysis based on UPGMA, NJ and PCoA method showed a dendrogram with three basic clusters and splitting feature of C. ensifolium and C. goeringii which partially congruent with the current taxonomic classification.