Molecular Diversity in Flax (Linum usitatissimumL.) as Revealed by DNA Based Markers

Abstract

The present investigation was undertaken to assess the genetic diversity of flax cultivars using molecular markers. 90 SSR and 10 ISSR flax markers were employed for molecular diversity analysis. Out of these, 25 microsatellite markers were found to be polymorphic giving a total of 99 bands with an average of 3.96 bands per marker ranging from 2 to 12. The polymorphic information content (PIC) value of each SSR primer pair ranged from 0.21 to 0.88 with an average of 0.49 while in case of ISSR primers, out of 10 primers, only 2 were found polymorphic producing a total of 20 bands with an average of 10 bands per marker ranging from 2 to 11. The polymorphic information content (PIC) value of ISSR primer pair ranged from 0.62 to 0.75 with an average of 0.68. Cluster analysis based on Jaccard's similarity coefficient using UPGMA grouped the 48 flax varieties into two clusters. The Jaccard's similarity ranged from 0.56 to 0.97 with an average similarity index of 0.76. The genotype Polf22 showed the highest similarity with LCK-88068 (i.e. 0.96) while Neela showed the least similarity with R-4158 (i.e. 0.68). It was evident from the cluster analysis that two introduced genotypes Neela and R-4158 were the most distantly related to the remaining genotypes followed by PKDL -43, RLC-137, KL-168 and R-4152. So, these genotypes must be further used in breeding programme for developing improved varieties.