Pedigree, marker recruitment, and genetic diversity of modern sugarcane cultivars in China and the United States

Abstract

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp) is an important crop for both sugar and biofuel production. However, the sugarcane breeding process has resulted in modern sugarcane cultivars with a narrow genetic basis. To broaden the genetic basis and promote international collaborations in sugarcane cultivar development, we documented the peidgrees of representative sugarcane culativars widely used in China and the United States of America (USA), recruited more than six thousand simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers for sugarcane, and assessed the genetic diversity and relationships beween representative sugarcane cultivars and their potential ancestry accessions. The SSR gentoyping results indicated that both the USA and Chiniese cultivars had low genetic diversity, specifically the Chinese cultivars. The USA sugarcane cultivars experienced high presure of selection for sugar content as they had the closest relationship with S. officinarum, followed by Chinese cultivars, S. robustum, and S. spontaneum. The sugarcane accessions assessed could be divided into five and four groups through cluster and principal component analysis, respectively. S. spontaneum as a potential ancestor contributing to the stress tolerance of sugarcane cultivars was grouped into distinct clusters, and S. officinarum was grouped with sugarcane cultivars in both countries. S. robustum did not seem to contribute to the sugarcane cultivar development in China, but may have contributed to the USA cultivar development. This study not only provided a collection of easy to use SSR markers, but also detailed genetic diversity and relationship among the cultivars in the two counties, which will be referable to promote international collaboration and broaden the genetic basis of sugarcane cultivars.