Assessment of Genetic Diversity in Aeluropus Littoralis using Transferable EST-Based Microsatellite Markers

Aeluropus littoralis is one the most successful monocot grasses in terms of high salinity tolerance, that contains forage quality and has valuable physiological features. The goal of this study is to introduce and provide quick access to DNA-based molecular markers for valuable halophyte, Aeluropus littoralis to assessment of genetic diversity. For this, a total number of 110 EST-SSR markers derived from wheat, rice and barley were amplified using A.littoralis genomic DNA to identify markers were being transferable. Accordingly, the total transferability of gramineous EST-SSR markers in A.littoralis was calculated about 44 %. This result showed that gramineous SSRs pool can be used easily for development of molecular markers in the valuable related species by spending less time and cost.Then, 12 pairs of transferable markers were used to evaluate the effectiveness of identifying markers in diversity assessment and genetic clustering of A. littoralis plants. Overall, 74 alleles of which over 90% were polymorphic were detected with an average of 6.1 alleles per marker. The polymorphism information content (PIC) values ranged from 0.26 to 0.38 with an average of 0.33. Cluster analysis using Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Means (UPGMA) and Dice ́s coefficient similarity grouped the Aeluropus ecotypes into seven groups. In this regard, ecotypes were rather separated in terms of geographical distances and the polymorphism among individuals and differences between groups was highly consistent with visual observations and variation of samples. Keyword: Aeluropus littoralis, EST-SSR, Genetic diversity, Transferability D ow nl oa de d fr om jc b. sa nr u. ac .ir a t 8 :0 2 + 04 30 o n S at ur da y Ju ne 5 th 2 02 1 [ D O I: 10 .2 92 52 /jc b. 9. 22 .2 3 ]