AUTHOR=Yin Jiwei , Zhao Hong , Wu Xingting , Ma Yingxue , Zhang Jingli , Li Ying , Shao Guirong , Chen Hairong , Han Ruixi , Xu Zhenjiang 

TITLE=SSR marker based analysis for identification and of genetic diversity of non-heading Chinese cabbage varieties

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2023.1112748

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2023.1112748

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=As a widely cultivated vegetable in China and Southeast Asia, the breeding of non-heading Chinese cabbage (Brassica campestris ssp. chinensis Makino) is very active and more than 400 varieties have applied new plant variety rights (PVR) in China. Distinctness is one of the key requirements for the grant of PVR and molecular markers are widely used as a robust supplementary method for similar variety selection in the distinctness test. Although a lot of genome-wide molecular markers have been developed, but they have not yet been well used in variety identification and distinctness test of non-heading Chinese cabbage. In this study, by using 423 non-heading Chinese cabbage varieties collected from different regions of China, 287 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were screened for polymorphisms, and 23 core markers were finally selected. The polymorphic information content (PIC) values of the 23 SSR markers ranged from 0.555 to 0.911, with an average of 0.693, and the average value of alleles per marker was 13.65. Using these 23 SSR markers, 418 out of 423 varieties could be distinguished with a discrimination rate of 99.994%. Filed test indicated that those undistinguished varieties were very similar and could be further distinguished by a few morphological characteristics. According to the clustering results, the 423 varieties could be divided into three groups: Pak-choi, Caitai, and Tacai. The similarity coefficient between SSR markers and morphological characteristics was moderate (0.53), and the efficiency of variety identification was significantly improved by using the combination of SSR markers and morphological characteristics.