Genetic Diversity of Maize Inbred Lines Using Turcicum Leaf Blight Resistant Gene Specific SSR Markers

A study was conducted to determine genetic distances among 36 maize inbred lines in the Turcicum leaf blight (TLB) QTL region to develop TLB resistant hybrids. The inbred lines were genotyped using 16 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers that are known to be associated with TLB resistance in maize. In total, 59 SSR alleles were detected, with a mean of 3.69 alleles per locus. The average polymorphic information content value was 0.55. Gene diversity (Hå) values ranged from 0.37 to 0.83 with an average of 0.61. There were ten clusters, from which potential breeding lines could be sampled. These results confirmed the diversity found among the maize lines within the TLB QTL region used in this study. The data from SSR markers was useful in identifying lines that could be used to design new hybrids and new breeding populations for TLB resistance.