Genetic diversity analysis of Azerbaijani bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes with simple sequence repeat markers linked to drought tolerance

Water stress causes large agricultural losses worldwide and deteriorates its quality. Drought tolerance in plants is a complex trait governed by multigenes and infleunce of various environmental factors affecting the expression of these genes. Thus this complexity necessitates the application of new molecular methods to identify and develop drought tolerant genotypes. The present study was conducted to investigate the genetic diversity of 45 Azerbaijani wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) core collection genotypes utilizing simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers associated with drought tolerance. Our results showed that nine primers out of twelve showed polymorphism. Maximum number of alleles were detected for WMC177 marker (on chromosome 2A), WMC 264 (on chromosome 3A) and WMC219 (on chromosome 4A) with 5, 5 and 4 alleles, respectively. The lowest alleles were determined for WMC219 marker (chromosome 4A) with only one allele. The total number of the detected alleles on A and D genome was 18 and 11 respectively. The maximum number of unique bands (3) was scored with pimer WMC 177. Seven genotypes (cv Gobustan, and Gizil bugda, landrace 6262, and research materials 6170, 6286, 6296 and 6293) possessed unique bands. Based on polymorphism analysis of the wheat genotypes by SSR markers, drought tolerant genotypes for utilization in breeding programs were selected.