Assessment of Genetic Diversity among ‘Kluai Khai’ Cultivars based on SRAP Markers

Abstract

Banana is one of the most widely consumed fruits in the world. ‘Kluai Khai Kamphaeng Phet’ and ‘Kluai Khai Kasetsart 2’ are two of the most important bananas for export because of their unique sweet and fragrant taste. However, due to genetic diversity in banana can be simply increase by natural variation or artificial selection and some of Musa (AA group) ‘Kluai Khai’ cultivars cultivated in Thailand have the same genome score but show different morphological characters, the genetic diversity among ‘Kluai Khai’ cultivars need to be classified using molecular markers. The aims of this study were to investigate DNA fingerprinting and assess genetic diversity among and within 13 Musa ‘Kluai Khai’ samples and two of ‘Kluai Hom’ cultivars using ten SRAP primer combinations. Out of 79 amplified bands, 61 amplified bands were polymorphic (77.2%) with an average 0.25 PIC value with a range from 0.16 to 0.38. An unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) analysis demonstrated that the 15 accessions had a similarity range from 0.64 to 1.00 with a mean of 0.83. In the present study, dendrogram derived from SRAP markers showed that all samples could be classified into two major groups. The information derived from this study could be useful for germplasm collection, conservation and banana breeding in the future.