Abstract

Cotton is grown worldwide for the production of fiber and an important oil seed crop. Genetic diversity and correlation between varieties are of great importance for cotton breeding. To find out polymorphism and genome changeability, DNA markers are most comprehensively used. The current work was conducted to study the genetic relatedness among 20 cotton genotypes using simple sequence repeats markers using 31 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) belonging to BNL series. These 31 DNA markers amplified fragments of 80 to 340 bp in size through SSR profiling. Seven markers out of 31 were found to be polymorphic. A total of 41 loci were amplified out of these, 17 loci were informative showing 41% polymorphism. On average, 1.3 loci per primer were amplified. A dendrogram was constructed using pair group method of arithmetic means (UPGMA) method comprising eight main groups that is, A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H. Genotypes MNH-147 and GOHAR-87 emerged as genetically most similar with a value of 97% followed by 97% similarity between the genotypes CIM-443 and FVH-53. The genotypes CIM-1100 and BH-136 were found most divergent showing 58% genetic similarity. Dissimilarity coefficient of the generated information obtained on genetic relatedness would be supportive in further breeding of cotton, the selection of parents for crossing and will also be helpful in widening the genetic base of breeding materials.

Key words: Genetic diversity, simple sequence repeat (SSR).