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 invest igated 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 le ast polymorphic (25%) compared to 53% for the other two sources. The 42 pri mers detected 189 polymorphic alleles with an average of 4.5 alleles per lo cus. The coefficient of similarity between accessions ranged from 0.28 to 0 .70. The estimate of similarity differed when each source of SSRs was analy zed independently. This study showed that SSRs are highly polymorphic in du rum. The data presented here provides a platform to develop a genotypic dat abase for durum wheat that will facilitate the exploitation of its genetic resources.