A comparison on Morphology Biochemistry and Molecular Markers of Indian Garcinia spp in relation to geographical variation

Abstract

Genus Garcinia, belonging to family Clusiaceae, is an underutilized crop mostly grown newlineas wild. Lack of awareness of the economic and nutraceutical utility of the crop and the newlinehabitat destruction has already resulted in the extinction of several species in India. Hence, in newlinethe present study, nutritional properties of the fruits and the physico-chemical properties of newlineseed kernel butter and tree bark exudates were studied. Further, as the species are reported newlineto be difficult to identify and taxonomy purely based on morphological characters, an newlineattempt was done to identify suitable molecular markers to help in identification of the crop newlineand to study genetic relationships. The habitat aspects were analysed to understand the newlineoptimum growth conditions for the species and to predict the suitable domains of Garcinia in newlineIndia using GIS tools. newlineIn this study, Garcinia species were collected from the two geographically separated newlinedistinct ecosystems, namely Western Ghats and N.E Himalayas. Though the climates of both newlineecosystems were different, GIS studies indicated the weather patterns of Garcinia adobes to newlinebe similar. Further, the optimum climatic parameters namely temperature, rainfall, altitude newlineand the soil types were predicted and using the growth parameters required for Garcinia, it s newlinedomains in India were predicted. Richness and diversity indices were estimated and the newlinegeographical features of maximum diverse grids were analyzed. newlineGarcinia species showed a great variation in the plant morphology, with significant newlinevariation in canopy features, leaf shape and fruit morphology. newlineBiochemical analysis indicated that organic acids were the major compounds present newlinein the fruits, followed by carbohydrates and proteins. HCA and malic acid were the newlinepredominant acids. Vitamin and mineral contents of Garcinia were similar to several tropical newlinefruits. The fruits were rich in phenolic compounds and xanthones were the major secondary newlinemetabolites present. Further, the antioxidant activities of the fruits were also studied. Seed newlinekernel contained a high quality fat source, known as Garcinia-butter which was solid at room newlinetemperature like ghee and hydrogenated fats, while the chemical properties and the levels of newlineunsaturated fatty acids were similar to that of common plant oils like olive and sunflower. newlineBarks produced yellow exudates, which were solidified to hard opaque brown substance. newlineExudates were resinous gum type and Xanthones were the major compounds present in the newlineexudates. Antioxidant activity of exudates was higher than that of fruits. newlineTo study the molecular variation among the species, (19) ISSR and (12) RAPD markers newlinewere used. The molecular profile characters indicate that the ISSR primers selected for the newlinestudy were suitable in determining the diversity among the species. Sequencing of newlinemonomorphic bands was performed to analyse its suitability in molecular studies. Those newlineprimers could also give a distinct segregation based on the species of the sample. Further, newlinephylogenetic study was conducted to study the evolutionary relationship between the newlinespecies by NJ method newline