Investigation and comparison of aerobic and Iranian rice based on markers linked to traits related to drought and salinity tolerance and their relationship with germination traits under osmotic stress

Aerobic rice is as useful potential in reducing of water problem. Comparison and investigation of genetic differences between Iranian rice varieties and aerobic rice can be useful in identification of genomic regions influencing in drought tolerance. In the present study in addition to an examination of germination genotypes under osmotic stress, allelic diversity were evaluated in 53 genotypes including 31 aerobic rice and 22 lowland Iranian rice varieties based on 26 SSR markers linked to QTL associated with drought and salinity tolerance. A total of 118 polymorphic alleles of microsatellite loci were produced with an average of 4.54 per marker. The highest calculated PIC level of 0.77 and 0.76 and the maximum range genetic diversity of 0.80 and 0.79 were related to RM10793 and RM493 respectively. Overview of genetic diversity statistics showed that two markers RM10793 and RM493 had higher values the other markers and more obvious role played in genotype differentiation. Grouping of genotypes according to Jaccard similarity coefficient using algorithms neighbor joining assigned them into two groups. This classification had significant compliance with the results of cluster analysis using the WARD algorithm based on germination traits. This may indicate the effectiveness and confirmation of used microsatellite markers in the separation of genotypes for osmotic tolerance.