Genetic diversity analysis of selected mulberry accessions using microsatellite markers

The current study was carried out with a set of 44 mulberry accessions in order to evaluate the degree of distinctiveness and relatedness among the selected germplasm accessions. A total of 40 microsatellite markers were selected on the basis of earlier studies, out of which 26 primers yielded a total of 182 polymorphic bands. The PIC (polymorphism information content) values was above 0.5. Based on clusters obtained from unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean, all the genotypes were grouped into three major cluster namely cluster viz., A, B and C having sub-sub-clusters comprising of genetically different accessions. Cluster analysis displayed relatively high degree of genetic variation among the genotypes belonging to neighbouring clusters. Grouping of genotypes was further confirmed by principal component analysis which revealed similar diversification among the studied genotypes. Therefore, the current investigation can be utilized in creating unique genetic profile of mulberry genotypes.