DNA barcoding of Indian soybean varieties as constructed through SSR markers

102 Indian soybean varieties were surveyed using 10 SSR markers that were selected based upon high polymorphic information content (PIC) observed in the initial screening of 40 randomly selected genotypes using 58 SSR markers. The 10 selected primer pairs amplified 3-8 alleles in the 102 varieties. In total, 50 alleles with amplicon size ranging from 100 to 330 bp were observed with PIC value ranging from 0.4760 (primer pair Satt229) to 0.8123 (Sct_199). Once the amplicon profile of all the varieties was obtained, alleles were assigned a numerical number in the order of increasing size of amplicon. The numerical numbers were placed from left to right in alphabetical order of linkage group of the 10 SSR markers to construct a 10-digit barcode, which would serve as unique identification code for each of 102 soybean varieties released for commercial cultivation in India and would be useful in testing their genetic purity.