Morphology Analysis and Molecular Identification Among Eight Cultivars of Ginger (Zingiber Officinale) Using DNA Markers

Soo, Yvonne (2024) Morphology Analysis and Molecular Identification Among Eight Cultivars of Ginger (Zingiber Officinale) Using DNA Markers. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is an important herbaceous perennial plant from the Zingiberaceae family, widely cultivated across Southeast Asia. Ginger rhizomes are valued for their bioactive compounds which contribute to their use in biological and pharmacological industries. The morphological characteristics of various ginger cultivars were studied, focusing on leaf length, width, and area, as well as rhizome length, width, and internode length. The analysis indicated no statistically significant differences in leaf length and width among the cultivars, thus, these traits cannot be used as distinguishing features. Conversely, there are significant differences in rhizome length and width, making these traits useful for differentiating between the cultivars. Among them, the rhizome of Bara ginger stands out the most with its unique dark reddish coloration and having the smallest rhizome size. However, it is still challenging to differentiate other ginger cultivars by simply evaluating their morphological traits as it can be quite subjective. Therefore, molecular techniques, specifically PCR-based molecular markers, offer a more reliable method for genotype identification. DNA markers were employed to classify ginger variations and determine genetic diversity, overcoming the limitations of morphological methods. In this study, the DNA of the Zingiber officinale species was extracted, amplified through PCR using rbcL primer and subsequently sequenced through Sanger sequencing. The phylogenetic analyses were conducted using the neighbour-joining method and based on multiple sequence alignments performed by ClustalW, with 1000 bootstrap replicates in MEGA11 software. The eight ginger cultivars display a high bootstrap value, indicating that their grouping is highly reliable and they share a common ancestor.