Molecular diversity of Azerbaijani wild and cultivated barley genotypes

Abstract

In this study the genetic diversity of Azerbaijan barley, nuclear genomes of 13 cultivated and 9 wild barley accessions were analyzed at population and individual levels using twenty ISSR primers. In total, 304 fragments were amplified, of which 263 were found to be polymorphic. High genetic diversity indices for ISSR markers (0.714) suggested that this method was equally effective in determining genetic variation in barley accessions. The highest and the lowest similarity indexes were equal to 0.92 and 0.20, respectively. Cluster analysis based on Nei’s genetic distance values showed that genotypes could be grouped into seven main clusters. Furthermore, no differences between the wild and cultivated barley accessions were revealed. Screening a higher number of anonymous loci in barley using ISSR markers will enable the selection of the best parent cultivars for the development of novel varieties