Molecular evidence in identifying parents of Garcinia mangostana L.

The obligate apomictsGarcinia mangostanaL. (Clusiaceae) was described from Malaysia and hypothesizedto have originated from the natural hybridization betweenG. malaccensisandG. hombroniana.One of theparents, i.e.G. malaccensis,was believed to be endemic in the state of Melaka. However, this was determinedonly through a comparison of their chromosome number and morphological characteristics. There is still thepossibility of other species within the same section ofG. mangotanaas the possible parents. Thus, investigationswere carried out using molecular markers from three different regions of the internal spacer, chloroplast andmicorsatellite. The objective of this study was to identify the possible parents ofG. mangostanaby comparingits relationship to other species within the same section, based on the genetic analysis of the internal spacer,chloroplast and microsatellite regions. Meanwhile, comparisons of allele sizes betweenG. mangostanawithG. malaccensis, G. opacaandG. hombronianausing six polymorphic primers which had previously beendeveloped were also performed. For phylogenetic analysis ITS, trnL and accD-psaL primers were used todetermine the relationships between the fourGarciniaspecies in theGarciniasection with two other sectionsand the genusClusiaas an outgroup. From the genetic analysis, it was found thatG. hombronianasharesno common allele with the other species, whileG. opacahas similar allele sizes withG. mangostanaandG.malaccensis. The phylogenetic tree also showed that the closest relative toG. mangostanaisG. opacaandG. malaccensis. This proves thatG. opacais more likely to be the other parent ofG. mangostanarather thanG. hombroniana.