Assessment of genetic diversity in wheat spring genotypes by molecular markers in northern Iran

Abstract

Genetic diversity of spring wheat cultivars has very important role in reducing genetic vulnerability during plant breeding and crossing programs. Molecular markers are main tools for identifying of the genetic diversity. In this study, simple sequence repeat (SSR) and random amplified polymorphic deoxyribonucleic acid (RAPD) markers were used to determine the genetic diversity of 10 bread wheat genotypes cultivated in Mazandaran province of Iran. Numbers of 33 and 17 polymorphic alleles were detected for genotypes by RAPD and SSR markers, respectively. The most polymorphic information content (PIC) value and polymorphism percentage was found in RAPDs by UBC 350 and UBC 109 markers with values of 0.53 and 0.50, respectively. In SSRs, Xgwm 469-6D marker detected 14 bands with five polymorphic alleles but Xgwm 120-2B had the most PIC with 57%. The obtained results show an average of 3.4 polymorphic bands per primer for SSR and 5.5 polymorphic bands per primer for RAPD. Therefore, RAPDs could detect more polymorphism alleles compared with SSRs. Key words: Spring wheat, molecular marker, random amplified polymorphic deoxyribonucleic acid (RAPD), simple sequence repeat (SSR), cluster.