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Molecular and chemical characterization of the most widespread Ocimum species

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Abstract

DNA fingerprinting (AFLP) and chemical analyses of essential oils were utilized to define the extent of variation existing in the genus Ocimum. Research was carried out on 22 Ocimum accessions representing seven species. Concerning the essential oil composition of all investigated accessions, 115 compounds were identified. UPGMA cluster analysis, based on Euclidian distances of essential oil constituents between all pairs of accessions, showed four well-supported clusters (O. tenuiflorum, O. basilicum/O. africanum, O. basilicum, and O. americanum/O. africanum). Relating to the essential oil composition of all of the investigated accessions, 17 compounds were identified as the main ones, and according to them 13 chemotypes were determined. AFLP relationships were determined by neighbor-joining (NJ) cluster analysis based on Dice’s distance matrix and by maximum parsimony (MP) analysis. O. basilicum, O. americanum/O. africanum, O. tenuiflorum, and O. gratissimum represented four clusters supported with high bootstrap values. A neighbor-net diagram allowed the visualization of apparently conflicting data by revealing relationships between genotypes and chemotypes. Concerning the O. africanum species, two distinct chemotypes, geranial/neral (accession 11) and estragol (accession 10), have been established, while all the studied O. americanum accessions belong to the geranial/neral chemotype. This could be additional evidence that O. americanum is one of the parents of O. africanum. Furthermore, the fact that the O. africanum accession (10) as well as O. basilicum ‘Purpurascens’ and O. basilicum ‘Erevanskii’ accessions belong to the estragol chemotype supports the theory that O. africanum is one of the parents of these two O. basilicum accessions.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, within the framework of Project No. 178-1191193-0212 and Project No. 119-1191193-1232.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Klaudija Carović-Stanko, Ivan Kolak & Zlatko Satovic

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

    Zlatko Liber

  3. Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Technology, University of Split, Split, Croatia

    Olivera Politeo & Mladen Milos

  4. Institute for Adriatic Crops and Karst Reclamation Split, Split, Croatia

    Frane Strikić

Authors
  1. Klaudija Carović-Stanko
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  2. Zlatko Liber
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  3. Olivera Politeo
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  4. Frane Strikić
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  5. Ivan Kolak
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  6. Mladen Milos
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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., Politeo, O. et al. Molecular and chemical characterization of the most widespread Ocimum species. Plant Syst Evol 294, 253–262 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-011-0471-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-011-0471-x

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