Genetic diversity of Cynodon dactylon germplasm in Xinjiang by SSR molecular markers

Sequence Related Amplified Polymorphism (SRAP) molecular markers were used to detect the genetic diversity of 19 Cynodon dactylon accessions bred by Xinjiang Agricultural University and 51 wild C. dactylon accessions collected from Xinjiang Province. This study indicated that a total of 55 bands were detected by the 11 primer pairs from the 70 accessions of C. dactylon, and each primer pairs amplified 3 to 6 bands with 5 average bands. Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) of each primer pairs ranged from 0.65 to 0.83, and the average PIC was 0.78. The SSRbased genetic similarity (GS) values among 70 C. dactylon accessions ranged from 0.5 to 0.84, indicating C. dactylon showed a rich genetic diversity in the Xinjiang China. Clustering analysis showed that all the 70 accessions could be divided into 4 groups, indicating 70 C. dactylon accessions could be distinguished by SSR molecular markers, in which Cd071 cultivars were classified in one group and the other wild C. dactylon accessions were classified in another 2 groups. This study suggested that the 70 C. dactylon accessions showed a large genetic difference, and there was a close correlation between genetic differentiation and ecogeographical habits.