Transferability of wheat SSR markers for determination of genetic diversity and relationships of barley varieties

Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are simple PCR-based co-dominant markers, which are highly polymorphic and informative due to the number and frequency of alleles, and thus they are most utilized among the molecular markers. However, the development of SSR markers is costly and time-consuming. Cross-species transferability of SSRs allows the SSRs isolated from one species to apply on a closely related species, which increases the utility of previously isolated SSRs. This study demonstrated the cross-species transferability of 196 SSR primer pairs of wheat in genetic diversity analysis of 40 varieties of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Of the 196 SSR primer pairs assayed, 59 (30.1%) showed transferability. Of the 59 primer pairs, 21 pairs were polymorphic with the polymorphism information content ranging from 0.19 to 0.70. The number of alleles detected at each locus ranged from one to seven with an average of 3.57. Cluster analysis using the Minimum Evolution algorithm and the coefficient of Number of Differences assigned the genotypes into five groups.