Assessment of Genetic Diversity of Korean Landrace Rice Accessions (Oryza sativa L.) by Microsatellite Analysis

Genetic diversity of Korean landrace rice accessions was assessed with microsatellite markers. The 214 alleles were detected by the 17 microsatellite primer sets from the 175 Korean landrace rice accessions. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 for SSS locus to 37 for RM206 locus with an average number of 12.6 alleles per locus. Gene diversity values according to the 17 microsatellite primer loci varied from 0.045 to 0.934 with an average of 0.676. Among the 14 microsatellite primers, RM48, RM206, RM214, RM232 and RM249 showed comparatively high number of alleles. On the UPGMA cluster analysis based on the GS coefficient matrix, the 175 Korean landrace rice accessions were divided into five major groups and the genetic similarity coefficient for all accessions ranged from 0.07 to 0.94. The average values of gene diversity of the five groups varied from 0.571 to 0.664 depending on the 17 microsatellite loci. While the Group IV showed the highest average value in gene diversity, hence group II showed the lowest average value of gene diversity among the five groups. The assessment of genetic diversity of Korean native rice accessions by the present microsatellite analysis will be helpful for efficient conservation strategy of rice germplasm. This preliminary work may also provide a protocol for a larger-scale evaluation of molecular diversity of germplasm of Korean landrace rice accessions.