Exploring the genetic diversity and population structure of Serbian and selected European bread wheat cultivars through iPBS-retrotransposon markers

Bread wheat is a globally vital crop, sustaining millions and contributing to food security. The present study investigated the molecular characterization of 60 bread wheat accessions, using 12 interprimer binding site (iPBS) retrotransposon markers, which yielded a total of 260 distinct bands. Out of the 260 bands, 42 were monomorphic while the remaining 218 (83.84%) were polymorphic, with polymorphism information content values ranging from 0.38 to 0.45. Genetic diversity indices, including Shannon’s information index (I = 0.01–0.53), effective number of alleles (Ne = 1.00–1.63), gene diversity (He = 0.0037–0.36), and marker index (MI = 0.31– 0.51), revealed moderate variability across the accessions. Analysis of molecular variance indicated 99% genetic variation within populations, underscoring the genetic richness of the germplasm. Principal coordinate analysis, neighbor-joining tree, and model-based STRUCTURE clustering divided the accession into two distinct groups. The average genetic distance was 0.23, with a minimum of 0.063 between Mohikana and NS Lenija and a maximum of 0.56 between LG Airbus and BC Bernarda accessions. Given their high genetic divergence, LG Airbus and BC Bernarda are suggested as potential candidate parents for future wheat breeding programs. Our study highlights the genetic variation within Serbian wheat germplasm and could be valuable for parental selection and the strategic planning of future breeding programs.