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Molecular and chemical characterization of the most widespread Ocimum species

DNA fingerprinting (AFLP) and chemical analyses of essential oil were utilized to define the extent of variation existing in 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, O. americanum/O. africanum). Relating to the essential oil composition of all investigated accessions 17 compounds were identified as main and according to them 13 chemotypes were determined. AFLP relationships were determined by Neighbour-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 Neighbour-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 geranial/neral chemotype. This could be an 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 estragol chemotype supports the theory that O. africanum is one of the parents of these two O. basilicum accessions.

AFLP; basil; chemotypes; essential oil; GC-MS; genotypes

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