Identification of essentially derived soybean cultivars using microsatellite markers

Abstract

Cultivars within a species are traditionally distinguished by morphological traits. In some species such assoybean however, varieties are generally obtained from very similar elite parent groups, which makes the morphologicaldifferentiation rather difficult. The aim of this study was to differentiate two soybean varieties by means of microsatellitemarkers. One variety was susceptible and the other resistant to soybean stem canker, the latter essentially derived from theformer, in five backcross generations. The DNA used in the analysis was obtained from morphologically indistinguishableseed of the two varieties studied. Forty-two microsatellite loci distributed across the integrated genetic map of soybean wereanalyzed, of which one locus, Satt115, differentiated the two varieties, indicating that even essentially derived varieties can bediscriminated by molecular markers.

Keywords

• cultivar protection
• Glycine max
• molecular markers
• stem canker