Objective  This study was aimed to accurately reveal the genetic relationship among sun-cured tobacco germplasms, and improve the utilization and breeding efficiency of sun-cured tobacco resources.

  Method  Genetic diversity of 36 sun-cured tobacco germplasms was analyzed using ISSR.

  Result  From the samples, 113 DNA bands were amplified with 7 polymorphic primers selected from 100 ISSR primers. Among them, 91 bands (80.5%) were polymorphic. The average effective number of alleles (Ne), Nei's gene diversity index (H), and Shannon's information index (I) of the ISSR markers were 1.64, 0.37, and 0.55, respectively, indicating a high detection efficacy. The UPGMA analysis showed a low diversity among the germplasms with the genetic similarity coefficients (GS) ranging from 0.74 to 0.91. With the new method, the germplasms were clustered into 5 groups at the level of 0.78.The digital fingerprints effectively distinguish the germplasms.

  Conclusion  The ISSR markers chosen for the DNA fingerprints of 36 sun-cured tobacco germplasms were appropriate for the otherwise difficult task of differentiating and identifying those genetically closely related varieties.