Diversity analysis of japonica rice using microsatellite markers

The study was conducted to evaluate the genetic similarity among commercial japonica rice varieties in Korea and China and to develop markers to differentiate between japonica cultivars developed in Korea and China. The genetic similarity and cluster of 38 accessions were analyzed using 47 SSR(simple sequence repeat) markers. The number of alleles by 47 SSR markers ranged from 2 to 9 with an average of 3.6. A total of 169 alleles were detected among these tested rice varieties. The PIC value varied from 0.05 to 0.79 with an average of 0.44. The Chinese japonica cultivars could be differentiated from the japonica cultivars in Korea by combining 2 SSR markers, RM223 and RM266. Cluster analysis showed that 38 tested varieties could be distinguished into japonica and indica based on the genetic distance.