Assessment of genetic diversity and identification of SSR markers associated with grain iron content in Iranian prevalent wheat genotypes

Iron is one of the most important nutrients in the human diet. According to the high consumption of staple foods such as wheat, the deficiency of iron in these crops would lead to nutritional disorders and related complications. To identify microsatellite markers associated with wheat grain iron content,38Iranian prevalent wheat genotypes were assessed using 30 pairs of genomic and EST microsatellite markers. Based on field experiments, significant difference was observed among studied genotypes for grain iron content which ranged from 34-53 mg/Kg. in the molecular experiment, the range of alleles per SSR locus was 2-9 with a mean of 4.5 and the mean of polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.55. The stepwise regression analysis has been used for estimating the relationship between microsatellite markers and grain iron content. The results indicated that Xwmc617 (4A, 4B, 4D), Xgwm160 (4A) and Xbarc146 (6D,6B,6A) were significantly correlated with wheat grain iron content. The results of this research can be used in further studies and marker assisted breeding of wheat to increase grain iron content.