Genetic diversity analysis of “Murungakayan” rice accessions based on seed morphology and molecular characterization

Genetic diversity of germplasm among species and within the species is important for systematic conservation of genetic resources. This study was conducted to assess the genetic diversity and to identify similar groups among the twenty-seven Murungakayan accessions conserved at the gene bank of Plant Genetic Resource Centre, Gannoruwa. Seed morphological characterization was done according to the standard descriptors for rice and data were analysed using Minitab 15.1. Molecular assessment was done using 31 SSR markers and PCR amplified products were resolved using 8% polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Bands were manually scored and analyzed using PowerMarker version 3.25. Morphological analysis grouped these accessions into ten clusters. The molecular analysis based on SSR markers generated 108 alleles across 27 populations. Polymorphism Information Content values ranged from 0.00 (RM 518 and RM 237) to 0.72 (RM 515) which revealed high genetic diversity. Nei’s genetic distance among accessions ranged from 0.00 to 0.9 and a dendogram grouped the accessions into eight clusters. Four sets of duplicates were identified with high genetic similarities. According to the molecular and morphological analyses, accessions 3490, 5378, 5614, 6279, 12824, 3329, 3491 and 5611 can be identified as the representative set of Murungakayan with high similarity. The results suggested that microsatellite markers along with morphological data could be used for identification of the representative set of Murungakayan accessions for systematic conservation and utilization