Molecular characterization of pea (Pisum sativum L.) using microsatellite markers

Nineteen pea (Pisum sativum L.) accessions have been characterized using Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs). The mains objectives of this study were to examine SSR polymorphism among cultivars and to assess genetic diversity among them. Eight microsatellites, from the Pisum microsatellite consortium (Agrogene ®, France) have been used. Five of the eight SSRs studied gave good electrophoretic profiles and helped us to amplify a number of alleles per locus varying from 3 (PSMPA5 and PSMPA6) to 13 (PSMPSAD126) with a total of 34 and an average number of 6.8 alleles per locus. The Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) varied from 0.18 for PSMPSAD134 to 0.85 for PSMPSAD126, with an average value of 0.62. The five microsatellites analyzed allowed us to separate 18 out of the 19 genotypes studied, and only the two most polymorphic markers (PSMPSAA205 and PSMPSAD126), permit to discriminate among the same genotypes (18) separated using the 5 SSRs. Genetic distances computed have been used to draw the corresponding dendrogram and to distribute genotypes according to their genetic relationship. The genotypes classified within the same group share several agro-morphological characters. Finally, the present study attests that SSR microsatellites are good tools for identifying genotypes and for the assessment of genetic diversity in pea.