Morphological, Molecular and Phytochemical Variation in Some Thyme Genotypes

Thyme is an important medicinal plant in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food industries. The first step for breeding of thyme is evaluating of genetic variation and relationship between thyme’s accessions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate morphology, chemical and molecular variation of 13 accessions of Thyme medicinal plant. ANOVA showed significant differences between accessions for total characterization tested. The dendrogram constructed on the basis of morphology similarities showed two major clusters. In order to evaluate the genetic variation, the genomic DNA was extracted using modified medicinal CTAB protocol. The evaluation of the of DNA quality was performed using electrophoresis. Twenty primers were used for PCR analysis and only 9 primers showed clear bands. Out of 149 bands, 83.22% were the polymorphism. The data were analyzed with SPSS and POPGENE programs and the dendrogram was drawn based on UPGMA and showed three major clusters. In order to evaluate the chemical variation, essential oil was obtained using Clevenger unit. ANOVA showed significant differences between accessions for total characterization test. Dendrogram for chemical variation showed two major clusters. Chemical and morphological traits’ matrices were formed using Statistical V5.5A software and were compared with genetic similarity matrices using GenAlex 6.1 software.