Evaluation of molecular diversity in breeding lines of durum wheat using SCoT markers

Evaluation of genetic diversity in a gene pool contributes to the effective selection of genotypes and shortens the plant breeding programes time. Genetic diversity plays a very important role in reducing genetic vulnerability during breeding process. In the present study, 96 durum wheat breeding line was evaluated for genotypic diversity using 12 SCoT primers. Our results revealed that the SCoT primers generated 76 polymorphic bands, with an average of 5.42 fragments per primer. The values of marker index (MI) and polymorphism information content (PIC) indicated that SCoT markers were efficient for detection of genetic diversity in durum wheat germplasm. The average of PIC and MI values for the SCoT markers were 0.46 and 2.51, respectively. According to Shannon’s index (I), Nei’s genetic diversity (He), the observed (Na) and effective (Ne) number of alleles, the ICARDA population had a higher level of genetic diversity than the CIMMYT’s population. Genetic relationships inferred from a nighbour-joining’s dendrogram clustered all the investigated lines into seven main groups. This clustering was supported by a principal coordinate analysis (PCoA). Our Results indicated a desirable genetic diversity among studied lines and confirmed that the SCoT technique is a suitable tool for studying genetic diversity in durum wheat germplasm.