Assessment of molecular diversity in an elite set of finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) genotypes using SSR markers

Santosh Deshpande
Manjappa
S. Rangaiah
M.V.C. Gowda
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Abstract

Genetic diversity was assessed among 47 elite finger millet genotypes (29 varieties and 18 African and Asian germplasm) using 
16 SSR markers. Owing to polyploidy nature of crop seven SSR markers have amplified more than one dose of alleles per 
genotype.  Thirteen markers were polymorphic with polymorphic information content from 0.02 (UGEP56) to 0.61 (UGEP64) 
with an average of 0.22. A total of 72 alleles were detected across genotypes and alleles per SSR marker loci ranged from 1 to 14 
(UGEP107) with an average of 4.69. UPGMA based dendrogram generated by Jaccard’s similarity coefficient had grouped 47 
genotypes in to three clusters and they were widely distributed on two dimension principle component analysis graph. Analysis 
of molecular variance revealed higher polymorphism in varieties (53.39 %) than in germplasm (39.71 %), implying higher 
genetic variability in cultivated varieties. The information gathered in the study will be useful in planning hybridization for 
further finger millet improvement.

Keywords Finger millet, molecular diversity, SSR marker, AMOVA, cluster
Published 23/02/26