Molecular Identification of Dominant Cultivars of Soybean Using Simple Sequence Repeat Markers

Abstract

Molecular identity of dominant cultivars of soybean needs to complement the morphological descriptors, which are insufficient and influenced by environment, for protecting the interest of breeders and maintaining the genetic purity. In the present investigation, genomic DNA of six commercial Indian soybean varieties viz. JS95-60, JS93-05, NRC7, JS97-52, NRC37, JS335 was amplified using ten simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, which were selected based upon the relatively higher polymorphic information content (PIC) value observed after polymorphism survey of 46 soybean genotypes through 58 SSR markers. PCR analysis showed nine polymorphic SSR primers which could differentiate unambiguously all the six varieties. Maximum similarity was observed between NRC7, JS93-05 and JS95-60. Two unique alleles amplified in each of the two varieties namely JS335 and NRC37 and four unique alleles in JS97-52 unambiguously differentiated them from the remaining varieties. Morphologically similar varieties JS93-05 and JS95-60 could be differentiated distinctly by primer pair Satt181, while NRC7 could be distinguished from both JS93-05 and JS95-60 through Sct_199. Results also showed that these nine polymorphic markers could distinguish the dominant cultivars from six non-trading varieties, which further confirmed the utility of nine SSR primers for protecting the breeders’ rights and maintaining the purity of dominant cultivars during seed production programme.