Abstract
India is considered to be the secondary center of diversity of chilli pepper, especially of Capsicum annuum. Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) are the most widely used marker system for plant variety characterization and diversity analysis especially in cultivated species which have low levels of polymorphism. The diversity analysis of 64 chilli pepper accessions, mostly of Indian origin, was performed using 50 SSR markers. Twenty seven (27) polymorphic primers amplified a total of 75 alleles with an average of 2.78 alleles per locus. Maximum of four alleles were amplified by the primer AVRDC PP 32. The polymorphic information content (PIC) values ranged from 0.39 (AVRDC PP 138) to 0.78 (AVRDC PP 18), with an average of 0.59. Based on the PIC values, primers AVRDC PP 18 was found to be the most informative (0.78), followed by the primers AVRDC PP 32 (0.69) and AVRDC PP 03 (0.66). Using the given set of primers, it was possible to characterize all but two pairs of accessions from each other. The analysis allowed grouping of the test germplasm into nine clusters. Based on diversity analysis, genotypes were identified for developing mapping populations, produce heterotic F1 hybrids and attempt crosses for genetic improvement of the crop. Key words: Capsicum, genetic diversity, molecular characterization, simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers.
Highlights
Chilli pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) (Solanaceae) has a chromosome number 2n=2x=24
Twenty seven (27) primers were used for genetic diversity analysis on the basis of scoreable amplified bands
2.78 alleles per locus were amplified in 64 genotypes
Summary
Chilli pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) (Solanaceae) has a chromosome number 2n=2x=24. It is indigenous to South. In the last decade or so, molecular markers such as restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs), amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs), and simple sequence repeats (SSRs) have been developed for pepper (Jang et al, 2004; Kang et al, 1997, 2001; Lee et al, 2004; Lefebvre et al, 2001; Moon et al, 2003; Paran et al, 1998; Prince et al, 1992) These markers have proven to be very useful in assessing genetic diversity and phylogeny, characterization of germplasm and detection of duplicates, parental verification in crosses, gene tagging in marker assisted breeding and gene cloning in genetic transformation (Costa et al, 2006). The present investigation was undertaken to characterize and give robust genetic diversity estimates in cultivated chilli peppers using SSR markers
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
