Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer, commonly known as Korean or Asian ginseng, is a perennial herb which is native to Korea and China. Its roots are highly prized for several medicinal properties. Therefore, Ginseng has been a top-ranked subject of many fields of scientific research worldwide. However, very limited number of research work has been published on species authentication using DNA marker system. In this study, 22 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to analyze the genetic diversity and population structure of 167 ginseng cultivars from 11 regions and 10 breed varieties. A total number of 111 alleles were detected, with an average of 5.05 per locus. The average expected heterozygosity and polymorphism information content (PIC) for SSR locus were 0.35 and 0.30, respectively. The model-based structure analysis revealed that 66.5% of all cultivars could be grouped into three populations with inferred value (allele shared >70%) membership. More than 33% of tested cultivars derived from two ancestries, which was basically consistent with clustering based on genetic distance. Almost all of the cultivars shared the ancestry with S1 and S2 except 1 China Jilin and 3 USA cultivars. The result indicated that most of Korean ginsengs are closely interrelated between the two ancestors but USA ginsengs are totally different from Asian cultivars.

• Young-Chang Kim(National Institute of Crop Science, RDA)
• Kyaw Thu Moe(Department of Plant Resources, College of Industrial Sciences, Kongju National University)
• Soon-Wook Kwon(Department of Plant Resources, College of Industrial Sciences, Kongju National University, Legume Bio-Resource Center of Green Manure (LBRCGM), Kongju National University)
• Kyung-Ho Ma(Genetic Resources Division, National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, RDA)
• Yong-Jin Park(Department of Plant Resources, College of Industrial Sciences, Kongju National University, Legume Bio-Resource Center of Green Manure (LBRCGM), Kongju National University) Corresponding Author