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BackgroundGenetic diversity of 19 forage-type and 2 turf-type cultivars of tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) was revealed using SSR markers in an attempt to explore the genetic relationships among them, and examine potential use of SSR markers to identify cultivars by bulked samples.ResultsA total of 227 clear band was scored with 14 SSR primers and out of which 201 (88.6 %) were found polymorphic. The percentage of polymorphic bands (PPB) per primer pair varied from 62.5 to 100 % with an average of 86.9 %. The polymorphism information content (PIC) value ranged from 0.116 to 0.347 with an average of 0.257 and the highest PIC value (0.347) was noticed for primer NFA040 followed by NFA113 (0.346) whereas the highest discriminating power (D) of 1 was shown in NFA037 and LMgSSR02-01C. A Neighbor-joining dendrogram and the principal component analysis identified six major clusters and grouped the cultivars in agreement with their breeding histories. STRUCTURE analysis divided these cultivars into 3 sub-clades which correspond to distance based groupings.ConclusionThese findings indicates that SSR markers by bulking strategy are a useful tool to measure genetic diversity among tall fescue cultivars and could be used to supplement morphological data for plant variety protection.

Start codon targeted polymorphism (SCoT) analysis was employed to distinguish 37 whipgrass (Hemarthria compressa L.) clones and assess the genetic diversity and population structure among these genotypes. The informativeness of markers was also estimated using various parameters. Using 25 highly reproducible primer sets, 368 discernible fragments were generated. Of these, 282 (77.21%) were polymorphic. The number of alleles per locus ranged from five to 21, and the genetic variation indices varied. The polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.358, the Shannon diversity index (H) was 0.534, the marker index (MI) was 4.040, the resolving power (RP) was 6.108, and the genotype index (GI) was 0.782. Genetic similarity coefficients (GS) between the accessions ranged from 0.563 to 0.872, with a mean of 0.685. Their patterns observed in a dendrogram constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean analysis (UPGMA) based on GS largely confirmed the results of principal coordinate analysis (PCoA). PCoA was further confirmed by Bayesian model-based STRUCTURE analysis, OPEN ACCESSMolecules 2014, 19 21542 which revealed no direct association between genetic relationship and geographical origins as validated by Mantel's test (r = 0.2268, p = 0.9999). In addition, high-level genetic variation within geographical groups was significantly greater than that between groups, as determined by Shannon diversity analysis, analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) and Bayesian analysis. Overall, SCoT analysis is a simple, effective and reliable technique for characterizing and maintaining germplasm collections of whipgrass and related species.

Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are widely applied in studies of plant molecular genetics due to their abundance in the genome, codominant nature, and high repeatability. However, microsatellites are not always available for the species to be studied and their isolation could be time- and cost-consuming. To investigate transferability in cross-species applications, 102 primer pairs previously developed in ryegrass and tall fescue were amplified across three allogamous ryegrass species including Lolium rigidum, Lolium perenne and Lolium multiflorum. Their highly transferability (100%) were evidenced. While, most of these markers were multiple loci, only 17 loci were selected for a robust, single-locus pattern, which may be due to the recentness of the genome duplication or duplicated genomic regions, as well as speciation. A total of 87 alleles were generated with an average of 5.1 per locus. The mean polymorphism information content (PIC) and observed heterozygosity (Ho) values at genus was 0.5532 and 0.5423, respectively. Besides, analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed that all three levels contributed significantly to the overall genetic variation, with the species level contributing the least (P<0.001). Also, the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averaging dendrogram (UPGMA), Bayesian model-based STRUCTURE analysis and the principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) showed that accessions within species always tended to the same cluster firstly and then to related species. The results showed that these markers developed in related species are transferable efficiently across species, and likely to be useful in analyzing genetic diversity.