Genetic variation of european maize genotypes (Zea mays L.) Detected using ssr markers

The SSR molecular markers were used to assess genetic diversity in 40 old European maize genotypes. Ten SSR primers revealed a total of 65 alleles ranging from 4 (UMC1060) to 8 (UMC2002 and UMC1155) alleles per locus with a mean value of 6.50 alleles per locus. The PIC values ranged from 0.713 (UMC1060) to 0.842 (UMC2002) with an average value of 0.810 and the DI value ranged from 0.734 (UMC1060) to 0.848 (UMC2002) with an average value of 0.819. 100% of used SSR markers had PIC and DI values higher than 0.7 that means high polymorphism of chosen markers used for analysis. Probability of identity (PI) was low ranged from 0.004 (UMC1072) to 0.022 (UMC1060) with an average of 0.008. A dendrogram was constructed from a genetic distance matrix based on profiles of the 10 maize SSR loci using the unweighted pair-group method with the arithmetic average (UPGMA). According to analysis, the collection of 40 diverse accessions of maize was clustered into four clusters. The first cluster contained nine genotypes of maize, while the second cluster contained the four genotypes of maize. The third cluster contained 5 maize genotypes. Cluster 4 contained five genotypes from Hungary (22.73%), two genotypes from Poland (9.10%), seven genotypes of maize from Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (31.81%), six genotypes from Czechoslovakia (27.27%), one genotype from Slovak Republic (4.55%) and one genotype of maize is from Yugoslavia (4.55%). We could not distinguish 4 maize genotypes grouped in cluster 4, (Voroneskaja and Kocovska Skora) and 2 Hungarian maize genotypes - Feheres Sarga Filleres and Mindszentpusztai Feher, which are genetically the closest.