Genetic diversity and relationship assessment of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) genotypes using molecular markers

Genetic variability and relationships among 21 genotypes of tomato were analyzed using PCR-based molecular markers. A total of 25 random decamer oligonucleotide primers were examined to generate RAPD profiles. Out of these, reproducible patterns were obtained with 15 primers. A total of 72 amplicons were obtained, out of which all were polymorphic and seven were unique bands. In case of SSR studies, however, nine primers were used and total number of amplicons obtained were 33 with three unique bands. The percentage of total polymorphism across genotypes was 100% in both RAPD and SSR studies. Genetic similarity matrix, based on Jaccard's coefficients, ranged from 3.85% to 73.17% indicating a wide genetic base. Dendrogram was constructed by using unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages method. The study showed the importance of RAPD and SSR markers for genetic analysis and indicated a considerable amount of genetic diversity among the different studied genotypes of tomato.