Investigation of Genetic Diversity among Bread Wheat Cultivars (Triticum aestivum L.) Using SSR Markers

The present study was conducted to understand the genetic diversity of bread wheat's that grown in Iran, and to evaluate polymorphism information content (PIC) of some wheat SSR primers. Experiment was done in the genomics Laboratory in Islamic Azad University, Khorramabad branch, Iran in 2012. Ninety-two bread wheat varieties were assayed to study the genetic diversity and polymorphism based on forty whole-genome SSR markers. Eighty alleles were identified and 2 alleles per locus were detected. The majority of SSR markers showed a high level of polymorphism. PIC values ranged from 0.12 (XBARC 148) to 0.80 (XBARC 54), with an average of 0.59 per primer, which indicates that markers were highly informative. According to similarity matrix, genetic similarity value ranged from 0.17 to 0.88. The lowest and highest genetic similarity were observed between 'Mihan' and 'Star' (No 31 and 57), 'Azadi' and 'Mahdavi' (No 4 and 6), respectively. Cluster analysis using the UPGMA method based on Jaccard coefficients was performed. Based on cluster analysis, 92 wheat cultivars were grouped in six clusters. Results indicated that Iranian grown wheat cultivars had high genetic diversity which could be exploited in wheat breeding programs.