Evaluation of Diversity in Durum Wheat Using Retrotransposon Markers SSAP(Sequence-Specific Amplification Polymorphism)

The genetic diversity of major crops, including durum wheat, has suffered an overall reduction with time. The knowledge of patterns of genetic diversity enhances the efficiency of germplasm conservation and improvement. In this study, 87 Iranian landraces of Triticum turgidum var. durum originating from different geographical areas of Iran, along with 21 durum cultivars from ten countries were evaluated using ten primer combination SSAP markers. Retrotransposons are mobile genetic elements that transpose via RNA mediation. They have wide distributions in genome because molecular markers have been designed based on them in recent years. SSAP markers BARE-1,Thv19, Tagermina and Tar1 were also used. Thv19M+ACA primer combination had the most polymorphic band in both landraces and cultivar durum wheats. Approximately 26.7 % BARE-1 bands were polymorphic in landraces.Thv19 showed a polymorphism level of 51.5%, and Tar1 and Tagermina displayed polymorphism levels of 32.8% and 27.2%, respectively. The amount of polymorphism in the studied cultivars for retrotransposons BARE1, Tagermina, Thv19 and Tar1 were 24.4%, 24.3%, 51.5%, 28.5%, respectively. This results show that Thv19 and Tar1 have more transpositional activity in the evolutionary process. Finally, Dendrogram was constructed to use algorithm UPGMA and Dice similarity coefficients.