Assessment of Variability and Genetic Structure of Canola cultivars and Lines using SSR Markers Related on Drought Tolerance QTLs

In the present study, genetic diversity among 41 lines and genotypes of canola including 19 open-pollinated and hybrid cultivars, 17 promising lines and 5 double-haploid lines were determined using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers related on drought tolerance QTLs. Thirty-six selected primers produced 166 discernible bands, with 157 (94.58%) being polymorphic, indicating considerable genetic diversity among lines and genotypes. The polymorphic information content values of loci were varied from 0.046 (FITO133) to 0.327 (BRMS-024), respectively. The average of PIC index was estimated 0.212. Cultivars were classified into two sub-populations according to analysis of population structure including (Talaye, Hyola420 and Hyola401 genotypes and DH1, DH5, DH8, Dh9 and DH11 double haploids) as first group and winter cultivars as second group (other cultivars and lines). Based on the analysis of molecular variance, intra-population variance was higher than inter-population variance. The results showed that average of marker index including Nei’s gene diversity, Shannon’s information index, the effective number of alleles were 1.508, 0.449 and 0.298 respectively in line and genotypes of canola. In total, the marker wasn't found to be using it as a marker for selecting genotypes of drought tolerant used in the first step of breeding programs.