Biosystematic Study on Some Egyptian Species of <i>Astragalus</i> L. (Fabaceae)

• Main Authors: Monier M. Abd El-Ghani, Ashraf S. A. El-Sayed, Ahmed Moubarak, Rabab Rashad, Hala Nosier, Adel Khattab
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-02-01
• Series: Agriculture
• Subjects: morphology; DNA extraction; SCoT polymorphism; ITS2 region; phylogeny
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/2/125

<i>Astragalus</i> L. is one of the largest angiosperm complex genera that belongs to the family Fabaceae, subfamily Papilionoideae or Faboideae under the subtribe <i>Astragalinae</i> of the tribe Galegeae. The current study includes the whole plant morphology, DNA barcode (ITS2), and molecular marker (SCoT). Ten taxa representing four species of <i>Astragalus</i> were collected from different localities in Egypt during the period from February 2018 to May 2019. Morphologically, identification and classification of collected <i>Astragalus</i> plants occurred by utilizing the light microscope, regarding the taxonomic revisions of the reference collected <i>Astragalus</i> specimens in other Egyptian Herbaria. For molecular validation, ten SCoT primers were used in this study, producing a unique banding pattern to differentiate between ten samples of <i>Astragalus</i> taxa which generated 212 DNA fragments with an average of 12.2 bands per 10 <i>Astragalus</i> samples, with 8 to 37 fragments per primer. The 212 fragments amplified were distributed as 2 monomorphic bands, 27 polymorphic without unique bands, 183 unique bands (210 Polymorphic with unique bands), and ITS2 gene sequence was showed as the optimal barcode for identifying <i>Astragalus</i> L. using BLAST searched on NCBI database, and afterward, analyzing the chromatogram for ITS region, 10 samples have been identified as two samples representing <i>A. hauarensis</i>, four samples representing <i>A. sieberi</i>, three samples representing <i>A. spinosus</i> and one sample representing <i>A. vogelii</i>. Based on the ITS barcode, <i>A. hauarensis</i> RMG1, <i>A. hauarensis</i> RMG2, <i>A. sieberi</i> RMG1, <i>A. sieberi</i> RMG2, <i>A. sieberi</i> RMG3, <i>A. sieberi</i> RMG4, <i>A. spinosus</i> RMG1, <i>A. spinosus</i> RMG2, <i>A. spinosus</i> RMG3, <i>A. vogelii</i> RMG were deposited into GenBank with accession # MT367587.1, MT367591.1, MT367593.1, MT367585.1, MT367586.1, MT367588.1, MT160347.1, MT367590.1, MT367589.1, MT367592.1, respectively. These results indicated the efficiency of SCoT markers and ITS2 region in identifying and determining genetic relationships between <i>Astragalus</i> species.