Software for Transforming Co-dominant Genotype Scores into Binary Data Matrix:Its Application to Genetic Diversity Research

The active research of genetic diversity is essential for conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources. There are mainly two kinds of molecular markers that are commonly used in genetic diversity studies,these are dominant and co-dominant molecular markers. Consequently,two types of data can be generated from different markers:binary or genotype data matrix that causes some difficulties for analyzing the studied genetic resources. Usually,the two types of data matrix are not comparable in their original styles for genetic diversity studies,but they can be compared when the data are transformed from genotype into binary form. An Excel based software for the transformation of genotype data into binary form data is developed in this study,which can transform genotype data into binary data matrix in an efficient and accurate way. The case study of genetic diversity in a wild soybean population from Jiangwan in Shanghai,applying the dominant ISSR and co-dominant SSR molecular markers indicated that it is necessary to transform the genotype data of the SSR banding patterns into binary data matrix for the required comparison and analyses in studying genetic diversity of plant germplasm. This software provides a useful tool in analyzing genetic diversity data generated from different molecular markers.