Molecular Characterization of Taro (Colocasia Esculenta (L.) Schott) Using Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers

Abstract

Taro, Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott is one of the most valued crops for economic, medicinal, and nutritional roots and tubers globally. However, the crop has not received pronounced research attention to enhance its production and utilization potential, which has resulted in insufficient planting materials for utilization by breeders in Ghana. Genetic diversity characterization of taro at molecular level is important and crucial step for their utilization in breeding and conservation. Hence, this study was carried out to assess the genetic diversity and relationships of 26 accessions of Taro, C. esculenta (L.) Schott collected from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana. A total of 38 putative alleles were amplified at 4 SSR loci with an average of 9.50 alleles per locus. PIC value ranged from 0.44 with primer XUQTEM 97 to 0.89 with primer XUQTEM 73 with an average value of 0.73. Expected Heterozygosity (He) ranged from 0.59 to 0.92. Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) clustering using Jaccard's similarity coefficient grouped 26 accessions into eight clusters. The information generated from this investigation will be useful for researchers and breeders for their conservation, Molecular Breeding-based Research & Development and their sustainable future utilization.