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Genetic relations among basil taxa (Ocimum L.) based on molecular markers, nuclear DNA content, and chromosome number

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Abstract

Twenty-eight basil accessions including six Ocimum species and six botanical varieties or cultivars of O. basilicum were studied using molecular markers, nuclear DNA content, and chromosome counting. This is the first study reporting the nuclear DNA content in the genus Ocimum. The results supported the existence of more infrageneric groups within the genus. The section Ocimum was further divided into two separate clades. The first clade contained the accessions belonging to different botanical varieties and cultivars of O. basilicum as well as O. minimum, indicating that the separate species rank of O. minimum was not justified. The second clade, comprising O. americanum, O. africanum, and two O. basilicum var. purpurascens accessions, could represent a set of allopolyploid species sharing some common parental genomes. O. tenuiflorum was the most divergent species according to genetic distance; it had the smallest genome size, organized in small chromosomes, and the lowest chromosome number. Chromosome data obtained in our research could indicate that the basic chromosome number for species belonging to section Ocimum is x = 12. This suggestion implies that species belonging to O. basilicum clade are tetraploids, while species belonging to O. americanum clade are hexaploids. It seems that the basic chromosome number for O. gratissimum could be x = 10 and for O. tenuiflorum x = 9. The differences in genome size and chromosome number among Ocimum species indicate that evolution of their genomes was accompanied by both sequence deletion/amplification and chromosome rearrangements and polyploidization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Seed Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, Svetosimunska 25, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia

    Klaudija Carović-Stanko, Ivan Kolak & Zlatko Satovic

  2. Department of Botany, Division of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Zlatko Liber

  3. Department of Molecular Biology, Division of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Višnja Besendorfer

  4. Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Breeding, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Branka Javornik & Borut Bohanec

Authors
  1. Klaudija Carović-Stanko
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  2. Zlatko Liber
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  3. Višnja Besendorfer
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  4. Branka Javornik
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  5. Borut Bohanec
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  6. Ivan Kolak
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  7. Zlatko Satovic
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Correspondence to Klaudija Carović-Stanko.

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Carović-Stanko, K., Liber, Z., Besendorfer, V. et al. Genetic relations among basil taxa (Ocimum L.) based on molecular markers, nuclear DNA content, and chromosome number. Plant Syst Evol 285, 13–22 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-009-0251-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-009-0251-z

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