Development of a simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker set to fingerprint local and modern potato varieties grown in central Anatolian Plateau in Turkey

Most of the potato cultivars grown in Turkey are of foreign origin and there are some local landrace varieties. Tuber seeds of most of these varieties are not produced and distributed in an organized way and many disputes appear as to the identity of the cultivar. An efficient variety identification system is required to solve these problems. In the present study, 16 selected good quality simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were evaluated in a total of 15 varieties, six of which were local landraces and nine were modern genotypes. Landraces were Basciftlik Beyazi, Aleddiyan Sarisi, Aleddiyan Beyazi, Aybasti Beyazi, Aybasti Sarisi and Golkoy. Modern varieties were Marfona, Agria, Hermes, Cosmos, Burren, Milva, Agata, Latona and Slaney. Fifteen of the used 16 markers were polymorphic on used cultivars. Markers had one to six band configurations on each genotype (average 3.69). Diversity index values of the markers varied from 0 to 0.720 (average 0.528). Marker data showed that three of the six potato landrace varieties with different local names were essentially the same. Using a set of five SSR markers, all cultivars tested could be easily identified, proving the power of SSR markers as fast and reliable tools for genetic fingerprinting purposes.