Microsatellite Marker Based Characterization of Common Bean Varieties of North-Western Himalayan Region Sharma JK, Singh Anita* Department of Seed Science and Technology, CSK HPKV, Palampur – 176 062, HP, India *Author for correspondence: Email: singhadr@yahoo.com
Online published on 16 January, 2015. Abstract Common bean is valued for its protein rich seeds and plays an important economic, social and nutritional role in Himachal Pradesh. The farmers of the North-Western Himalayan region are still growing traditional varieties, most of which have not been adequately characterized for diversity or used in breeding programs. These varieties are remarkably diverse in grain morphology. During the present study, five common bean varieties, namely, Baspa, Jwala, Kailash, Kanchan and Triloki collected from Lahaul valley and one variety, Chamba local collected from Chamba district were used to evaluate the level of polymorphism and characterize them using 30 microsatellite markers for assessing their genetic diversity. Only eighteen markers showed polymorphism and amplified a total of 51 alleles. The analysis of polymorphic alleles revealed the presence of 18 unique alleles in the Chamba local variety and 20 unique alleles in the varieties collected from Lahaul valley. Polymorphic information content ranged between 0.15 and 0.75 with a mean value of 0.40. Cluster analysis delineated the varieties into three main clusters at 43% similarity coefficient. Only one case of molecular identity between Jwala and Kanchan was found with 92% similarity coefficient. The present results confirmed the usefulness of microsatellite markers as a tool in the development of suitable DNA fingerprints of common bean varieties and assessment of their genetic diversity. The study could be further extended for assessment of genetic diversity of larger number of accessions, genotypes and varieties of common bean collected from different locations which could be an important reservoir of genetic diversity. The results could be utilized by the plant breeders for the production of improved quality commercial classes of common bean. Top Keywords Microsatellite markers, common bean, polymorphic information content, dendrogram. Top |