Use of SSR Markers for Characterizing Cultivated Durum Wheat and Its Naturally Occurring Hybrids with Wild Wheat

Eleven SSR primers were used to analyze 56 accessions of durum wheat consisting of 29 wheat-like accessions, 12 black glumes white awned, 12 white glumes black awned accessions and three local landraces in order to assess natural hybridization of cultivated wheat with its wild progenitor Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides and to search for evidence of the introgression of wild relatives genes into durum wheat. A total of 738 bands were scored across the accessions. Of the 24 genomic loci totally assayed, 20 (83%) were found to be polymorphic and the remaining four monomorphic. The white glumes black awned accessions were completely separated in one cluster, whereas the black glumes white awned were grouped with wheat-like accessions in the main and its sub-clusters using UPGMA analysis. A total of 560 markers were scored for both wheat and black glumes white awned accessions in which 70% of genomic loci showed to be polymorphic. This high occurrence of polymorphism was most likely a consequence of introgressive hybridization involving emmer wheat. The present study demonstrated the efficiency of SSR technology for polymorphism detection and introgression assessment in wheat, thereby offering wide scope of applications in marker aided breeding programs of wheat