Assessing genetic diversity of promising wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)lines using microsatellite markers linked with salinity tolerance

Narrow genetic variability may lead to genetic vulnerability of field crops against biotic and abioticstresses which can cause yield reduction. In this study a set of 37 wheat microsatellite markers linkedwith identified QTLs for salinity tolerance were used for the assessment of genetic diversity for salinity in30 promising lines of hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). A total of 438 alleles were detectedwith an average allele number of 11.84 per locus using 37 microsatellite markers. The number of allelesper locus ranged from two to twenty, the maximum number of alleles was observed at Xgwm312. Genediversity statistic for 37 microsatellite loci was varied from 0.66 to 0.94 and also polymorphicinformation content value was varied from 0.64 to 0.93 for Xgwm445 and Xgwm312 respectively. Resultshowed Xgwm312 SSR marker with the highest PIC value was distinguished as the best marker forgenetic diversity analysis to improve of salinity tolerance. Obtained dendrogram by UPGMA methodcategorized genotypes in to 3 different groups, which had different reaction to salinity. A wide range ofgenomic diversity was observed among all the genotypes. Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) alsoconfirmed this pattern of genetic diversity, proving them can be use as the prime candidates in order toimprove of salinity tolerance in breeding programs of wheat. The present study also indicates thatmicrosatellite markers permit the fast and high throughput fingerprinting of numbers of genotypes from agermplasm collection in order to assess genetic diversity

Assessing genetic diversity of promising wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)lines using microsatellite markers linked with salinity tolerance Keywords:

Genetic diversity , Microsatellite markers , Promising wheat lines , Principal coordinatesanalysis (PCoA)