Morphological, Biochemical, and Molecular Diversity Assessment of Egyptian Bottle Gourd Cultivars

Tegenetic variability and relationships between ten bottle gourd cultivars were evaluated based on morphological, biochemical,
and molecular parameters. Te results displayed high variability among selected cultivars in terms of photosynthetic pigments,
total free amino acids, total phenol content, isozymes pattern, and protein electrophoresis. Furthermore, diferences in molecular
markers were revealed by the SCoT technique. Te peroxidase (POD) and polyphenyl oxidase (PPO) isozymes patterns did not
detect signifcant diferences in bands among cultivars. Te protein patterns revealed seventeen bands ranging from 126 to 9kDa
and fve polymorphic bands representing 29.41%. On the other hand, eight SCoT primers were used to evaluate the genetic
variability and relationships between the ten Egyptian bottle gourd cultivars. Te results of SCoTanalysis detected 44 amplicons
with 50% polymorphism. In addition, the results of the phylogenetic tree that is constructed based on the similarity coefcient
revealed by SCoTanalysis confrm the results of biochemical analysis indicating a genetic relationship between the most efcient
bottle gourd cultivars (S1 and S2 cultivars). In addition, there is a genetic relationship among the less efcient bottle gourd
cultivars (S4 and S5 cultivars). Tese results could be benefcial to distinguish among bottle gourd cultivars in the plant breeding
programs.