Diversity Analysis in Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) Genotypes Using Microsatellite Markers

Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) is commonly called as eggplant or aubergine. It is one of the most important commercial solanaceous vegetable crops grown widely in Asian and African countries. It is popular among people of all social strata and is rightly called a vegetable of masses [1, 2]. It is of substantial economic importance in Asia, Africa, and the subtropics (India, Central America), and it is also grown in some warm temperate regions (Mediterranean area, Southern USA) [3, 4]. It is an old world species and native to Indo-Chinese centre of origin [5]. The genus Solanum is morphologically hypervariable and highly diverse in number of species [6] and ecogeographical distribution [7]. Despite the economic and nutritional importance of eggplant, breeding efforts in this crop have been limited compared to other solanaceous crops, such as tomato and potato [8, 9]. In the present study 30 solanaceae specific microsatellite markers were used of which 29 showed good amplification in the 4 checks used viz state check for round and oblong to long fruit, national check for round fruit and national check for oblong to long fruit. Of these 29, primer set emi04J02 and emk03O04 did show amplification in the other genotypes. Finally, 27 markers were used for analysis. Of these 23 showed monomorphic pattern (85.1%) whereas only 4 showed some polymorphism (14.8 %). The most informative marker was eme01D03 which showed presence of 3 alleles. The low degree of polymorphism indicated a high degree of homogeneity in the genotypes which could be due to a narrow genetic base.