Genetic diversity of Shiraia bambusicola from East China assessed using ISSR markers

• ISSR marker was used to study gene polymorphisms of Shiraia bambusicola for the first time.
• S. bambusicola species exhibited a high level of genetic diversity.
• The genetic differentiation primarily occurred within the populations.
• The relationship between sibship and geographical distribution was intensive.

To understand the genetic differentiation of the medicinal fungus Shiraia bambusicola, the genetic diversity of 107 individuals from eight populations collected from Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces were studied using inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) analysis. The results revealed that the 11 employed primers produced a total of 241 ISSR loci, of which 240 loci (PPB = 99.6%) were polymorphic. Both Nei's gene diversity indexes and Shannon's gene diversity indexes showed that the genetic differentiation of S. bambusicola primarily occurred within the populations. AMOVA revealed that the variation among populations was 40.0%, and the variation within populations was 60.0%. The results of an unweighted pair group method arithmetic average (UPGMA) analysis and a principal coordinate analysis (PCA) revealed that the populations with minimal geographic separations frequently exhibited regional characteristics. These findings revealed that the relationship between sibship and geographical distribution was intensive.