Investigation on genetic diversity of pepper (Capsicum spp.) parents and interspecific hybrids using ISSR markers

Abstract

Pepper (Capsicum) is one of the most important and widespread vegetable crops in the Balkans. Some old indigenous forms are not the focus of modern breeding but are preserved in some areas and represent valuable genetic resources. Three Bulgarian varieties (Plovdivska kapiya, Familiya and IZK Delicates) C. annuum, and two representatives of the chili pepper C. chinense and C. frutescens. Interspecific hybrids were made between sweet (C. annum) and chili pepper plants. The genetic relationships of the varieties of Capsicum species were assessed using ISSR primers. PCR amplification of isolated DNA from parental lines and interspecific hybrids revealed 65 distinct polymorphic bands. Cluster analysis clearly distinguished the parental forms and individuals from the F1 and F2 populations. The applied ISSR molecular technique can be successfully used to analyze genetic diversity in cultivars, early-stage seedlings, and interspecific hybrids, as well as to detect differences in individuals whose genomes are highly homogeneous, such as those of the genus Capsicum.

Assessment of elite pepper breeding lines using molecular markers

“…Various polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based molecular marker techniques are used in the genetic evaluation of plants. In the evaluation of pepper germplasm, several molecular marker systems, such as RAPD (Prasad et al 2013;Tomlekova et al 2023), ISSR (Inter Simple Sequence Repeats) (Alayachew et al 2017;Srebcheva and Kostova 2023), SRAP (Du et al 2010;Bozokalfa et al 2017; Nei's (1972) genetic distance between 4 pepper populations Qiu et al 2021), and microsatellite markers (Dhaliwal et al 2014;Rabuma et al 2020;Terefe et al 2022), have been used. SRAP markers are a dominant marker system developed by Li and Quiros (2001).…”