The Possibilities for Identification and Characterization of Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) Cultivars Using Microsatellite Markers

The aim of this study was to establish possibilities of chosen SSR markers for the identification and differentiation a set of 37 alfalfa cultivars (Medicago sativa L.) and also the utilization these SSR markers to detect genetic diversity among alfalfa cultivars. A total of 5 SSR markers were selected from previous studies based on their high polymorphism identification content (PIC). All used markers were polymorphic and produced reproducible, consistent and easily scorable data. These five primer pairs amplified altogether 18 different polymorphic alleles with an average number of 3.6 alleles per locus. The number of alleles ranged from 3 (FMT13) to 6 (AFctt1). The expected heterozygosity (H-e) and polymorphic information content (PIC) of the tested SSR markers were calculated. The H-e of the tested SSR markers ranged from 0.5737 (FMT13) to 0.7267 (AFctt1) with an average of 0.6297. The PIC ranged from 0.4921 (MTIC430) to 0.6788 (AFctt1) with an average of 0.5593. The dendrogram based on hierarchical cluster analysis using UPGMA algorithm for the detection of genetic diversity was constructed. The cultivars were grouped into three main clusters. It was not possible to distinguish cultivars Koly (YEM) & Remany (YEM) and KM - Mararton (HUN) & Creno (DNK) from each other, respectively.