Development and application of EST-SSRs for diversity analysis in Ethiopian grass pea

Abstract

To date, very limited molecular knowledge and molecular tools are available on grass pea (Lathyrus sativusL.). Herein, we present a genetic diversity analysis of 20 grass pea accessions collected from various regions of Ethiopia by means of seven newly developedLathyrusexpressed sequence tag-derived simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers and four cross-transferable EST-SSRs derived fromMedicago truncatulaL. Forty-five alleles were detected among all the analyzed accessions. The number of alleles/locus ranged from two to seven with an average of four alleles/locus. The observed heterozygosity (Ho) ranged from 0.320 to 0.504, while the expected heterozygosity (He) ranged from 0.354 to 0.470.FSTvalues estimated by analysis of molecular variance were 0.01, 0.15 and 0.84 for among regions, among accessions and within accessions, respectively, indicating that most of the variation (84%) resides within accession. The model-based cluster analysis grouped the accessions into three clusters grouping accessions, irrespective of their collection regions.