Genetic Diversity among Tea (Camellia sinensis) Accessions Based on Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) Patterns

Genetic diversity of 45 tea accessions from Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan was investigated by using RAPD analysis. Out of the eighty primers screened, twenty primers generated 99 polymorphic bands with a polymorphic rate 87.0%. The size of the amplified fragments ranged from about 3,138 bp to 520 bp. By cluster analysis, all of the 45 accessions can be grouped into five groups. Over 90% of the 32 Korean accessions belonged to group II, III, IV and V. Moreover, newly developed Korean cultivars (accession no. 13, 14 and 15) belonged to very different group compared with any other Korean accessions. Among the Korean accessions, the minimum genetic similarity 0.500 was obtained between accession no. 17 and 37 and the largest genetic similarity 0.912 between no. 20 and 21.