Assessment of genotypic variation among cultivated durum wheat based on EST-SSRS and genomic SSRS

Genotypic variation of 64 durum lines, landraces, and varieties wereinvestigated using three sources of microsatellites (SSRs). 245 primer pairswere used to detect polymorphism in this collection. A total of 42polymorphic SSR primer pairs consisting of 22 EST-SSR, 11 XGWM and9 WMC were used for genotyping. The EST-SSRs primers produced highquality markers, but were least polymorphic (25%) compared to 53%for the other two sources. The 42 primers detected 189 polymorphicalleles with an average of 4.5 alleles per locus. The coefficient of similaritybetween accessions ranged from 0.28 to 0.70. The estimate of similaritydiffered when each source of SSRs was analyzed independently. This studyshowed that SSRs are highly polymorphic in durum. The data presentedhere provides a platform to develop a genotypic database for durum wheatthat will facilitate the exploitation of its genetic resources.