Genetic Diversity Among Barley Varieties (Lines) Bred in China

Abstract

To investigate the genetic variation level of Chinese barley varieties(lines) bred over recent years,the genetic diversity among 73 barley accessions from different growth regions were analyzed by 25 SSR markers on different locations of 7 linkage groups.2-6 alleles of each SSR locus were detected with an average of 3.92 alleles/locus.The variation of polymorphism information content(PIC) of each SSR marker ranged between 0.252 and 0.780 with an average of 0.569,showing a relative high detection ability of genetic polymorphism by SSR markers.The genetic similarity coefficient(GS) of malting barley varieties(lines) from different regions varied from 0.661 to 0.767 with an average of 0.714,and GS of hulless barley varieties(lines) in Tibet plateau varied from 0.533 to 0.925 with an average of 0.699.42 accessions of malting barley could be classified into 2 major groups at the level of GS 0.671,and 31 accessions of hulless barley could be classified into 5 groups at the level of GS 0.618.Majority of clusters/subclusters were found to contain accessions from the same geographic origins,showing a certain level of relationship between clustering and variety origin.In this study,SSR markers with high polymorphism were used to assess the genetic diversity of Chinese barley cultivars(lines).A poor genetic diversity still existed among these varieties(lines) and their genetic basis was rather narrow,which provided important reference for the selection and utilization of parental genotype in barley breeding project.