Molecular diversity of rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes in Malaysia based on SSR markers

Rice crop improvement is determined by the degree of genetic variability and the heritability of favorable genes. A total of twenty-five SSR markers were used to measure the level of polymorphism and genetic variation among the 65 rice genotypes. Twenty-one of the twenty-five SSRs were discovered to be polymorphic, whereas the rest were determined to be monomorphic. A total of 91 alleles were found in 21 SSR markers, with an average of 4.00 alleles which ranged from 3 (RM335, RM551, RM538 RM190, RM242 and RM270) to 7 (RM263). The average PIC value was 0.62 ranging from 0.28 (RM 270) to 0.76 (RM 481). The rice genotypes were divided into nine primary clusters by a dendrogram based on NTSYS software’s UPGMA analysis. The cluster analysis revealed that these genotypes were divided into nine clusters where cluster IB-1a has the most genotypes (31) followed by cluster IB-1b (24).The genotype BR24 and Utri as well as Pukhi and WANGI PUTEH had the highest dissimilarity coefficient values indicating genotype diversity. These accessions have a lot of genetic diversity among the constituents; thus, they could be used directly in a hybridization program to improve yield-related parameters.