Molecular Variations in Rabi Sorghum Varieties Using SSR Markers

Genetic diversity was assessed for 2 popular varieties and 5 promising lines of rabi sorghum by using11 SSR markers. The marker Xiabt312 reported 100% polymorphism rate followed by Xtxp15 (85.70%) and mSbCIR300 (85.71%). The sorghum varieties studied for this analysis showed the polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged from 0.25 to 0.87 with a mean of 0.67 indicates higher diversity within them. Clustering analysis based on the genetic dissimilarity grouped the 7 lines into 2 major and 4 sub clusters and grouping was in good agreement with pedigree. Cluster II was the largest cluster with 4 genotypes followed by cluster I with 3 genotypes. The rabi sorghum genotypes viz., M35-1, RSV-1876 and RSLG-2422 were placed in cluster I and Phule Anuradha, RSV-2371, RSV-1910 and RSV-1988 placed in cluster II. Clustering based on SSR molecular profile of the genotypes shows that there is a distinct variability among the genotypes under this study. The selected markers have great potential in DNA fingerprinting in sorghum which in future could be integrated with DUS data descriptors for effective cultivar identification and differentiation.