Assessment of genetic diversity in medicinal rices using microsatellite markers.

A set of 36 microsatellite markers distributed over 12 chromosomes of rice were used to assess genetic diversity in 33 medicinal rice genotypes. A total of 169 alleles were amplified, of which 166 were polymorphic. The number of alleles detected per locus ranged from 2 to 9 with an average of 4.69 alleles per locus. The polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged between 0.24 and 0.956 with an average of 0.811 per locus, indicating the suitability of the microsatellite markers for detecting genetic diversity among these rice genotypes. All the rice genotypes showed the presence of multiple alleles. Genetic similarities among genotypes varied from 0.239 to 0.827 with an average of 0.5. The cluster analysis grouped all the genotypes into two major clusters at 0.43 level of genetic similarity. The first three principal coordinates explained more than 0.63 of total genetic variation. All the genotypes included in the study could be uniquely distinguished from each other. The data provides basic information on medicinal rice genotypes of India which will be useful for future reference and to protect these unique rices under Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime.