Ishtiaq Ahmad

MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND SSR BASED DNA FINGERPRINTING OF ELITE COMMERCIAL MANGO CULTIVARS

Thirteen premium quality commercial mango cultivars grown in Pakistan were assayed with seven SSR primer series viz., mMiCIR, MiSHRS, MIAC, MITGIT, LMMA, UBC and MiIIHR. Among the 120 primers used, 101 produced bands and revealed a narrow genetic base ranging from 0.62-0.8 with maximum similarity among the cvs. ‘Anwar Ratole’ and ‘Sensation’ while the maximum divergence was between cvs. ‘Sindhri’ and ‘Sensation’. Chaunsa was genetically more similar (74.2%) and ‘Kala Chaunsa’ was more dissimilar (31.2%) respectively when compared with all the other cultivars. Of 101 SSR primers, we have identified 30 (29.7%) highly informative primers (PIC value ≥0.6), which could be useful in the molecular characterization of mango germplasm. The primer series MIAC, UBC and MiIIHR had the maximum percentage of highly informative primers in descending order. The UPGMA based Euclidian dendrogram constructed with similarity indices placed all the cultivars according to regions of their origin and magnitude of diversity among them. The morphological characterization of the commercial cultivars was also done using 11 quantitative traits; however, none of the traits except fruit weight was informative for the assessment of genetic diversity. SSR based molecular characterization appeared to be reliable, reproducible and cost effective.