Molecular Characterization of Indian Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Varieties for Cold - Induced Sweetening Using SSR Markers

Cold - induced sweetening developed during storage of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L .) at low temperature is a crucial factor influencing the processing quality of potato tubers and remains one of the principal concerns of potato processing industry . Developing CIS - resistant genotypes is the most effective method to cope with this stress . In this study , the genetic diversity of 11 Indian potato varieties with different reactions to CIS was assessed using 10 SSR primers . The primers detected a total of 42 alleles arranged in 44 different configurations , among which 37 alleles (88%) were polymorphic . The polymorphic information content (PIC) value of the SSR locus ranged from 0 . 473 to 0 . 787 thus indicating a high utility of these markers for study of genetic diversity in potato . A number of polymorphic fragments appeared to be specific to a given sugar - forming group . Primer Sti007 generated one fragment Sti007 131bp present only in all the high sugar - forming varieties . The dendrogram derived from Dice ’ s similarity coefficients among the 11 varieties could partially but efficiently differentiate close parents and sugar - forming groups among the varieties . These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of SSR markers to assess the genetic variation among potato cultivars in order to develop molecular markers associated with CIS to improve potato breeding programs .