EVALUATION OF THE GENETIC DIVERSITY OF SUGARCANE CULTIVARS GROWN IN VIETNAM AND IDENTIFICATION OF MICROSATELLITE MARKERS FOR HIGH SUGAR CONTENT
Abstract
Currently, the main concern of sugarcane breeding program is to increase the sugar productivity by genetic modification. Characterization of sugarcane germplasm provides essential information on genetic diversity for breeders in the varietal development. In this study, 20 microsatellite primer pairs were used to evaluate the genetic diversity and inter-relationships among 42 cultivars grown commonly in Vietnam. The primer pairs gave total 85 alleles, the number of allele ranged from 3 (M53) to 10 (M10). Based on cluster analysis, 42 cultivars were grouped into 2 main distinct groups. The genetic similarity among sugarcane cultivars were very low and ranged from 3% to 64%. The primer pair M12 gives clear polymorphism between high and low sugar content cultivars. This marker could be useful for discrimination of high sugar content cultivar and for marker-assisted selection.