Genetic Variability and Population Structure of Pakistani Potato Genotypes Using Retrotransposon-Based Markers

Molecular germplasm characterization is essential for gathering information on favorable attributes and varietal improvement. The current study evaluated the genetic divergence population structure of 80 potato genotypes collected from Punjab, Pakistan, using polymorphic retrotransposon-DNA-based markers (iPBS). A total 11 iPBS primers generated 787 alleles with a mean value 8.9 per primer, which ~95% were across genotypes. Different variation attributes, such as expected heterozygosity (H = 0.21), unbiased (µHe 0.22), Shannon’s index (I 0.32), showed existence sufficient diversity in studied Analysis molecular variance (AMOVA) that within was higher (84%) than between populations (16%). neighbor-joining tree constructed based distance matrices arranged into five distinct groups, FD61-3 2 had highest distance. STRUCTURE analysis corroborated dendrogram results distributed also clusters. Our determined retrotransposon-based are highly could be used to evaluate local exotic genotypic data dissection reported this will enhance improvement development.