Genetic relationships of 24 Pennisetum cultivars and construction of DNA fingerprints based on SSR markers

DNA fingerprints are efficient tools for the identification of known and unknown cultivars. In order to assist with the effective identification of germplasm resources of Pennisetum in China, the genetic diversity of 24 Pennisetum cultivars was analyzed and the DNA fingerprints were constructed using SSR markers in this study. 20 pairs of SSR primers with higher polymorphism were selected from 70 pairs of SSR primers for further study. The results showed that 199 bands were amplified from 24 Pennisetum cultivars by the 20 selected pairs of primers and 176 of which were polymorphic with an average of 8.8 polymorphic bands per pair of primer. The unweighted pair group method (UPGMA) with arithmetic mean dendrogram from SSR markers grouped the 24 Pennisetum cultivars into three categories. And based on two combinations of SSR markers selected, the DNA fingerprints were constructed in this study, which can be used for the classification and identification of Pennisetum cultivars.