Assessment of genetic variation in a collection of lentil using molecular tools

A collection of lentil landraces, mostly from Italy, but including Mediterr anean and foreign germplasm as reference, was evaluated using RAPDs, micros atellite-primed PCR and ISSRs. A low level of useful polymorphic bands was detected with the former two markers, whereas ISSRs revealed a higher degre e of variation. The UPGMA trees, based on Jaccard similarity index matrices , obtained with RAPD and ISSR respectively, did not produce similar cluster s. However, in both cases, the accession which differentiated the most from the others was from Ethiopia, a country where also other cultivated specie s have shown a remarkable degree of variation. On the other hand, Italian a ccessions showed a trend to group together. ISSR markers proved to be usefu l for distinguishing closely related genotypes, and possibly for substantia ting the genetic peculiarity of ecotypes applying for the obtainment of ori gin and quality marks.