Assessment of genetic relationship of promising potato genotypes grown in Rwanda using SSR markers

Evaluation of genetic relationship and divergence is important for an efficient choice of parents for breeding and strategic conservation. The objective of this study was to determine genetic relationship among Rwandan potato genotypes using thirteen selected polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to identify suitable parents for breeding. The thirteen SSR primers identified 84 alleles across all genotypes. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 10 with an average was 6.5. The polymorphic information content (PIC) of loci ranged from 0.51 to 0.85 with an average of 0.71. Heterozygosity (He) varied from 0.59 to 0.86 with an average of 0.75. Significant positive correlations were detected between PIC and He (r= 0.99), PIC and number of alleles (r=0.76) and, He and number of alleles (r=0.80). The genetic distance between cultivars ranged from 0.44 to 0.93 and the average was 0.68. Overall the SSR analysis provided five different genetic clusters of the potato cultivars useful for breeding.