Abstract

The present investigation was carried out to analyze the genetic diversity of rice cultivars utilizing microsatellite or simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Twenty four (24) genotypes of rice were evaluated for polymorphisms after amplification with 30 SSR primer pairs. The results obtained depicted a wide range of variation among the varieties. The diversity parameters confirmed that Bordungsha F1, S5 and Baodhan Bordungsha (deep water rice) were most diverse and were distinctly different from the rests of the genotype and the dissimilarity coefficient ranged from 0.06 to 0.94. This study provides a clear picture of the genetic diversity of rice. Among the set of SSR primers tested, RM44 (0.942), RM495 (0.932), RM125 (0.998) and OSR13 (0.970) were more informative in comparison to other primers.

Key words: Oryza sativa, SSR markers, PCR, polymorphism, genetic variation.