Persian oak (Quercus brantii Lindl.) is one of themost importantwoody species of the Zagros forests in Iran. Three molecular marker techniques: start codon targeted (SCoT), inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and inter- retrotransposon ampli!ed polymorphism (IRAP) markers were compared for !ngerprinting of 125 individuals of this species collected fromdifferent geographical locations of north-west of Iran. A total of 233 bandswere am- pli!ed by 18 ISSR primers, of which 224 (96.10%)were polymorphic, and 126 polymorphic bands (97.65%)were observed in 129 bands ampli!ed by 10 IRAP primers. Besides, 118 bandswere observed for all 10 SCoT primers, of which 113 were polymorphic (95.71%). Average polymorphism information content (PIC) for ISSR, IRAP and SCoT markers was 0.30, 0.32 and 0.38, respectively, and this revealed that SCoT markers were more informative than IRAP and ISSR for the assessment of diversity among individuals. Based on the three different molecular types, cluster analysis revealed that 125 individuals taken for the analysis can be divided into three distinct clus- ters. The Jaccard's genetic similarity based on the combined data ranged from 0.23 to 0.76. These results suggest that ef!ciency of SCoT, IRAP and ISSR markers was relatively the same in !ngerprinting of individuals. All molec- ular marker types revealed a low genetic differentiation among populations, indicating the possibility of gene "ow between the studied populations. These results have an important implication for Persian oak (Q. brantii) germplasm characterization, improvement, and conservation.
