Genetic relationship and diversity of Mangifera indica L.: revealed through SCoT analysis

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is one of the most economically grown fruits in the tropical and subtropical areas around the world. In the present study, start codon targeted (SCoT) markers were employed to investigate the genetic diversity of 73 mango accessions obtained from Guangxi province, China. A total of 275 bands were amplified by thirty-four SCoT primers, of which 203 (73.82%) were polymorphic. Genetic similarity between accessions was in the range of 66.2–94.2% with an average of 78.8%. The observed highest genetic similarity value (94.2%) was found between ‘Ren Mian Mango’ and ‘Hong Hua Mango’, the observed lowest genetic similarity value (66.2%) was found between‘Xia Mao Xiang Mango’ and ‘India No. 15’. These coefficients were utilized to construct a dendrogram using the unweighted pair group of arithmetic means. All the accessions were grouped into four (A, B, C, D) clusters and correspond well with their geographical origin and their known history. These results have an important implication for mango’s rue germplasm characterization, improvement, management and conservation.