Comparison of DNA profiles of traditional and modern bread wheat varieties of India

The present investigation was undertaken to evaluate and compare four pre green revolution indigenous varieties, C306, C518, C591 and C273 and three elite wheat lines PBW343, PBW534 and PBW550 of recent origin with microsatellite markers. A total of 315 SSR primers yielded 185 polymorphic SSR loci and 460 alleles. Twenty five unique/rare alleles in C varieties can be potentially useful in breeding programmes. Genetic diversity was assessed by clustering analysis in which a Dice Similarity Matrix was generated using the SSR data and the dendrogram was constructed using unweighted neighbour joining method with 1000 bootstrap by Darwin 5. The lines diverged into two groups, one comprising C varieties and the second elite wheat lines. The cluster analysis thereby revealing the possibility of transferring useful variability from the old varieties into new elite wheat cultivars.