Molecular characterization of parental lines and hybrids of maize cultivated in North-Western Himalayan region using microsatellite markers

Maize is an important cereal crop of North-Western Himalayan region of India with wide ranging and diversified uses which is resulting in the release and recommendation of new hybrids of maize for the region. The use of parental lines with a narrow genetic base by various private and public sector seed agencies may cause a risk of genetic diversity loss. Molecular characterization of hybrids and parental lines by DNA fingerprinting provides knowledge of the genetic relationship among them thus preventing the risk of increasing uniformity. The technique is helpful for molecular identification and hybrid purity testing. The present study was undertaken to carry out microsatellite marker based DNA fingerprinting of ten maize hybrids and their parental lines for molecular identification and assessment of genetic diversity. Twenty three microsatellite markers were found to be polymorphic. Number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 6 with a mean of 3.30. Mean expected heterozygosity and polymorphic information content was 0.58 and 0.52, respectively. Average Jaccard's similarity coefficient observed was 0.46 revealing an average genetic diversity of 54% among various genotypes studied. Cluster analysis delineated the maize hybrids and parental lines into four main clusters A, B, C and D at 0.32 similarity coefficient.