Morphological, Phytochemical, and Molecular Studies on Gamma-irradiated Coriandrum Sativum

Abstract

The aromatic herb coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) has a lot of uses as a spice and has potential medical benefits. In this study, the impact of Gamma rays was evaluated on coriander plants. The results showed that 20, 40 and 60 Gy doses activated most of growth and yield characters significantly (plant height, dry weight of plant, number of branches/plants, number of umbels, weight of umbels/plant, weight of seeds/plant and weight of 100 seed/plant), with 60 Gy and 20 Gy being the best doses each one of them in some characters. Also, GC-MS analysis was performed to determine the changes in the phytochemical compounds in ethanolic leaves and seeds extract. Linalool fatty acid was the most main compound in the ethanol extract, the dose 40 Gy was the highest linalool percentage in leave extract (59.48%), while the dose 60 Gy was the greatest content of linalool in seed extract (62.41%). Moreover, some minerals (N, Na, Mg, P, K, Ca, Mn, and Fze) were determined in irradiated and non-irradiated samples for both leaves and seeds fine powder. On the other hand, the effect of radiation on genetic materials was studied using ten ISSR primers as well as nine SCoT primers which determined the changes in the genome and calculate the polymorphism in leaves samples which were exhibited (55.5%) with ISSR and (84.3%) with SCoT primers.