Molecular analysis of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L) cultivars using AFLP and STMS markers

Fifteen AFLP and eighteen STMS primer pairs were employed to reveal genetic diversity and relationship in twenty-one cultivars of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L). Fifteen AFLP primer pairs generated 1804 amplicons, out of which 1732 amplicons (96%) were polymorphic and 600 amplicons (similar to 33%) were genotype specific. Eighteen polymorphic STMS primer pairs generated 64 amplicons with an average of 3.55 amplicons per primer pair. Polymorphic information content (PIC) varied from 0.52 to 1.0 for STMS markers. The genetic similarity between cultivars; varied from 0.30 to 0.85 for AFLP and 0.22 to 0.83 for STMS markers. Dendrogram constructed after combining both AFLP and STMS markers data with Bootstrap analysis, grouped all the cultivars into four clusters. Association of varietal type and flower colour was observed as cultivars E 100Ymu and Nabin (Both Desi type and pink flower) clustered together in the dendrogram.