Population genetic variation analysis of bitter gourd wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. momordicae in China using inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR) molecular markers

Bitter gourd wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. momordicae (FOM) is a devastating crop disease in China. A total of 173 isolates characteristic of typical Fusarium oxysporum with abundant microconidia and macroconidia on white or ruby colonies were obtained from diseased plant tissues. BLASTn analysis of the rDNA-ITS of the isolates showed 99% identity with F. oxysporum species. Among the tested isolates, three were infectious toward tower gourd and five were pathogenic to bottle gourd. However, all of the isolates were pathogenic to bitter gourd. For genetic differences analysis, 40 ISSR primers were screened and 11 primers were used for ISSR-PCR amplification. In total, 127 loci were detected, of which 76 were polymorphic at a rate of 59.84%. POPGENE analysis showed that Nei’s gene diversity index (H) and Shannon’s information index (I) were 0.09 and 0.15, respectively, which indicated that the genetic diversity of the 173 isolates was low. The coefficient of gene differentiation (Gst = 0.33 > 0.15) indicated that genetic differentiation was mainly among populations. The strength of gene flow (Nm = 1.01 > 1.0) was weak, indicating that the population differentiation caused by gene drift was blocked to some degree. The dendrogram based on ISSR markers showed that the nine geographical populations were clustered into two groups at the threshold of genetic similarity coefficient of 0.96. The Shandong and Henan populations were clustered into Group I, while the Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Hubei populations constituted Group II. Results of the genetic variation analysis showed that the Hunan and Guangxi populations had the highest degree of genetic differentiation, while the Hubei population had the lowest genetic differentiation. Our findings enrich the knowledge of the genetic variation characteristics of FOM populations with the goal of developing effective disease-management programs and resistance breeding programs.