Morphological and molecular characterization of momordica cochinchinensis spreng different accessions cultivated under tropical condition

Abstract

Momordica cochinchinesis or gac fruit is a ‘superfruit’ that is well-known in Vietnam. Gac is an orange fruit that is ovoid in shape and has a soft spiny texture. In Malaysia, gac is a new and less known plant. This study aimed to characterize gac using morphological analysis involving both vegetative and reproductive parts and to characterize the genetic diversity in gac by using Inter-simpler sequence repeat (ISSR) analysis. Four different gac accessions were collected from different areas and were cultivated under tropical conditions. The gac accessions showed differences in morphological characters. Generally, the gac fruits were reddish-orange in color, the leaf was dark green on adaxial part and light green on the abaxial part, the female and male flower was light yellow and white in color. The fruit weight ranged from 193.72 g (GD) to 334.70 g (GH) with varied shape and spike density. DNA extraction was following the CTAB method. All 30 primers showed high levels of polymorphism (83%) and the polymorphism information content (PIC) with the mean of 0.48. Nei’s genetic distance coefficient ranged between 0.27 and 0.67 with the mean value of 0.41. Dendrogram based on UPGMA analysis grouped the four gac accessions into two main groups. Cluster I consisted of accession GD, GM and GH while cluster II consist of only GX. Results from both morphological and molecular analysis showed genetic diversities in all four gac studied.