Assessment of genetic diversity of tomato genotypes by using molecular markers

Abstract

The natural phenotypic variations present in the cultivated plants can be linked to the molecular polymorphism by association genetics. The present study was aimed to screen the drought tolerant genotypes by morphological, biochemical and measuring the genetic diversity by using Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) markers. An experiment consisting of 26 genotypes was conducted in the laboratory of Biotechnology University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Muzaffarabad, Pakistan. Seeds were grown in pots and 4 weeks older leaves were used for DNA extraction. Twenty-six genotypes of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) were fingerprinted with 30 (SSR) markers by using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique. Nei’s genetic distances for SSR markers, data was calculated and relation matrix between genotypes was shown graphically in the form of a dendrogram. All the 26 tomato genotypes showed genetic distances of 1.0 - 2.20 between them. A smallest genetic distance 0.2 was recorded between genotypes G6-17909, G5-17904 and G21-006234, G12-0852, G7-88572 G32 -19233, G28-17903, G12-17806 indicating closer relationship between the genotypes. The most distant accessions were G7-1059 and G45-19212. The marker (SSR) based fingerprints will assist for their future potential in crop improvement