The genetic fidelity of in vitro-raised gerbera clones was assessed by using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Out of 35 RAPD and 32 ISSR primers screened, only 12 RAPD and 10 ISSR primers produced clear, reproducible and scorable bands. The 12 RAPD primers produced 54 distinct and scorable bands, with an average of 4.5 bands per primer. The number of scorable bands for ISSR primers varied from 3 (ISSR-14) to 9 (ISSR-07), with an average of 5.5 bands per primer. The number of bands generated per primer was greater in ISSR than RAPD. All banding profiles from micropropagated plants were monomorphic and similar to those of the mother plant. A similarity matrix based on Jaccard's coefficient revealed that the pair-wise value between the mother and the in vitro-raised plantlets was 1, indicating 100% similarity. This confirmed the true-to-type nature of the in vitro-raised clones.

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In Brassica oleracea , heterosis is the most efficient tool providing impetus to hybrid vegetable industry. In this context, we presented the first report on identifying superior heterotic crosses for yield and commercial traits in cauliflower involving cytoplasmic male sterile (CMS) and doubled haploid (DH) lines as parents. We studied the suitability of genomic-SSRs and EST-SSRs based genetic distance (GD) and agronomic trait based phenotypic distance (PD) for predicting heterosis in F 1 hybrids using CMS and DH based parents. 120 F 1 hybrids derived from 20 Ogura based CMS lines and 6 DH based testers were evaluated for 16 agronomic traits along with the 26 parental lines and 4 commercial standard checks. The genomic-SSRs and EST-SSRs based genetic structure analysis grouped the 26 parental lines into 4 distinct clusters. The CMS lines Ogu118-6A, Ogu33A, Ogu34-1A were good general combiner for developing early maturity hybrids. The SCA effects were significantly associated with heterosis suggesting non-additive gene effects for the heterotic response of hybrids. Less than unity value of σ 2 A/D coupled with σ 2 gca /σ 2 sca indicated the predominance of non-additive gene action in the expression of studied traits. The correlation analysis of genetic distance with heterosis for commercial traits suggested that microsatellites based genetic distance estimates can be helpful in heterosis prediction to some extent.