Molecular Evidence For The Interspecific Relationships In Paeonia Sect. Moutan: PCR-RFLP And Sequence Analysis Of Glycerol-3-phosphate Acyltransferase (GPAT) Gene

China is not only the origin place of wild tree peonies, but also the origin and development center of all cultivated tree peonies. Sect. Moutan DC. is the only woody group in the genus Paeonia L., Paeoniaceae. Because of the special position of the genus Paeonia in angiosperms and the enormous economic value of cultivated tree peonies, it is of great importance to have a better understanding of the interspecific relationships among species in sect. Moutan . In the present study, a portion (the big intron between exon 5 and 6, ca. 2 kb) of glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (GPAT) gene of 15 wild tree peony accessions collected from 15 populations were analyzed using PCR-RFLP technique and 9 accessions representing all of 8 species in sect. Moutan were sequenced. A reduce-median (RM) network of sect. Moutan was constructed with Network (version 3.0) computer program using the PCR-RFLP data obtained from the digestion experiments of 12 selected restriction enzymes. Both maximum parsimony (MP) and neighbor-joining (NJ) trees of sect. Moutan were constructed with PAUP*(4.0) program using the sequences newly obtained in this study and from GenBank. As a result, a well-resolved and highly-supported gene tree of sect. Moutan was obtained, and is basical in accordance with the tree constructed based on morphological data. The phylogenetic relationships among species in sect. Moutan was discussed in detail.