Assessment of genetic purity of four rice cultivars using microsatellite and ISSR markers

Abstract

Summary The estimation of rice seed purity is conventionally done by a grow-out-test (GOT). As well as other issues, the time required for GOT is a major limitation. In this study, DNA-based microsatellite and ISSR markers were used to establish fingerprints of four rice varieties and used for assessment of genetic purity. A total of 160 alleles were obtained using 23 microsatellite primer pairs for four rice varieties. Six microsatellite markers (RM 247, RM 303, RM 164, RM 108, RM 72 and RM 19) and eight ISSR markers (UBC 842, UBC 810, UBC 812, UBC 834, UBC 808, UBC 873, UBC 841 and ISSR 2) were found to be the most informative primer sets. These primers sets were used for seed purity analysis of all four varieties. Genetic purity based on a set of three markers revealed that all the tagged plants identified as off-types on the basis of morphological traits were confirmed by the molecular marker in seed samples of the four rice varieties.