Assessment of genotypic variation among cultivated durum wheat based on EST-SSRS and genomic SSRS

Genotypic variation of 64 durum lines, landraces, and varieties were investigated using three sources of microsatellites (SSRs). 245 primer pairs were used to detect polymorphism in this collection. A total of 42 polymorphic SSR primer pairs consisting of 22 EST-SSR, 11 XGWM and 9 WMC were used for genotyping. The EST-SSRs primers produced high quality markers, but were least polymorphic (25%) compared to 53% for the other two sources. The 42 primers detected 189 polymorphic alleles with an average of 4.5 alleles per locus. The coefficient of similarity between accessions ranged from 0.28 to 0.70. The estimate of similarity differed when each source of SSRs was analyzed independently. This study showed that SSRs are highly polymorphic in durum. The data presented here provides a platform to develop a genotypic database for durum wheat that will facilitate the exploitation of its genetic resources.