Genetic diversity among sorghum bicolor genotypes using simple sequence repeats [SSRs] markers

ABSTRACT

The technique Simple Sequence Repeats [SSRs] was applied to quantify the genetic diversity among nine Sorghum bicolor genotypes of different origins cultivated in Egypt using nine Sorghum bicolor-derived simple sequence repeat [SSR] markers. The total number of alleles detected by SSR was 70 with an average of 7.3 alleles per primer. The results indicate that 58% of the SSR markers were polymorphic. Cultivar-specific SSR markers characterizing different genotypes were used to generate unique fingerprinting for each genotype. Nine unique positive and negative cultivar specific markers were detected. The unique specific markers characterized 4 out of 9 cultivars. The cluster analysis of SSR data showed a wide genetic background in the examined cultivars. Based on the data reported here, SSR markers appear to be particularly useful for the estimation of genetic similarity among the relatively poorly characterized genotypes of sorghum of different origins