DIVERSITY ANALYSIS OF POTATO ADVANCED HYBRIDS USING MORPHOLOGICAL AND SSR MARKERS

Abstract

The study was conducted to characterize 39 Indian potato advanced hybrids using highly polymorphic 15 SSRs (Simple Sequence Repeats) and to compare the efficiency of DNA based markers with morphological descriptors. The molecular markers detected 3 to 21 alleles with minimum allele count for STU06 and maximum for STM5114 and STM1052, and an average of 13.3 alleles per primer. The average PIC (Polymorphic information content) value for each primer was 0.84, with highest PIC value observed for primer STM5114 (0.92), STM1052 (0.91), STINHW (0.90), POTM1-2 (0.91), and STM0032 (0.90). The highest marker index (MI) was also observed for marker STM5114 and lowest for STM07
with average of 11.6 per marker. The resolving power (RP) was highest for marker STM0032. Based on these parameters, the study identified 5 most informative markers that could distinguish all the 39 Indian potato hybrids, thus adding to the existing information with regard to suitability of markers in identification and fidelity testing in Indian potato cultivars. The hybrids were clustered into 5 and 7 groups using molecular markers and morphological traits based diversity analysis, respectively. The linear correlation between morphological and molecular markers based similarity illustrated no significant correlation indicating that morphological descriptors and pedigree is not merely expression of SSR fingerprints and thus combining information of molecular markers and morphological data will be appropriate for diversity analysis in potato, particularly when the number of molecular markers used in the study are less in number.