Molecular Characterization of soybean (Glycine Max (L.) Merril) genotypes using SSR markers

Abstract

Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) is the world’s leading source of oil and protein. It has the highest protein content of all food crops and is second only to groundnut in terms of oil content among food legumes. Six SSR primers were used to amplify genomic DNA from 10 soybean genotypes, after which a high level of polymorphism was observed. Seventeen alleles with a mean value of 2.8 alleles per locus was detected. The polymorphic information content (PIC) among genotypes ranged from 0.60 to 0.16 with an average of 0.45 and a gene diversity of 0.51. A phylogenetic tree was produced from the allelic diversity data, which classified the genotypes into two groups. The major cluster was divided into two sub-groups, each consisting of 3 genotypes, while the minor cluster was divided into three sub-groups. The result suggested that the traits (emergence percentage and 100-seed weight) in which high broad sense heritability were observed can be considered as favourable attributes for improvement. The combination of morphological and molecular methods of characterization will be efficient in breeding programmes and that SSR is a useful tool for assessing genetic diversity