GENETIC DIVERSITY OF WILD AND CULTIVATED MANGO GENOTYPES OF PAKISTAN USING SSR MARKERS.

Pakistan is blessed with a wide range of indigenous mango germplasm. Wild mango genotypes, growing at Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and its vicinity are valuable resource for unique genetic diversity. The DNA fingerprints of this available germplasm have never been worked out. Hence, the aim of this study was to develop DNA profiles of 31 wild and 13 cultivated genotypes of the country to determine the population structure. Number of alleles per locus of the 51 Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers ranged from 3 to 9 and a total of 296 alleles with an average of 5.80 alleles per locus. The average polymorphism information content value was 0.764. The expected and observed heterozygosity values were 0.805 and 0.720, respectively, which exhibited high level of genetic diversity in the wild and cultivated mango germplasm. The Bayesian cluster, principal coordinate and hierarchical clustering analyses divided the collected genotypes into three groups i.e. A, B and C. Members of group A and B consisted of wild genotypes entirely, while all commercial genotypes were clustered in group C. The obtained results highlighted genetic diversity encompassed by wild mango genotypes of AJK which can be considered as distinct genotypes for further evaluations in the framework of breeding programs and new cultivar identification in mango. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]