SSR based genetic diversity in blast resistant and susceptible accessions of finger millet (Eleusine coracana.L)

Abstract

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana), serves as important millets in cereals and widely cultivated manly in arid and 
semiarid regions of the world. Presence of high amount of protein and calcium, it serves as a core staple food for rural 
populations in developing tropical countries where calcium deficiency and anemia are wide spread. In recent years, 
identification of polymorphisms at molecular level is being important for genetic diversity studies. Among several 
DNA based markers, SSR have become the marker of choice for this study. The present study was undertaken with the 
aim of investigating the applicability of available SSR markers for uncovered polymorphisms by using 25 primer pairs 
for varietal discrimination as well as for the genetic assessment in 32 finger millet accessions. Study revealed that all 
the SSR markers have showed polymorphism, out of which 17 were identified with a Polymorphic Information Content 
(PIC) value of above 0.3. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 5 with an average of 2.48 alleles per locus. 
Based on the similarity matrix values, the 32 genotypes were grouped into nine clusters at 0.44 Jaccard’s similarity 
coefficient. The similarity matrix values ranged from 0.20 to 0.72. The minimum similarity was observed between 
Indaf-5 and GE 1330 (0.20), and maximum similarity was observed between Indaf-9 and GE 71 (0.72). Based on the 
SSR markers, assessment of molecular diversity could serve as a sound basis in the identification of genetically distant 
accessions as well as in the duplicate scoring of the morphologically close accessions. Further, the identified 
polymorphic markers in the current study will serve as valuable source for further breeding programmes.