Evaluation of genetic relationships among Hungarian and Turkish melon (Cucumis melo L.) accessions by SSR markers

Molecular diversity and genetic relationships among the most typical Hungarian and Turkish melon accessions were analysed using SSR markers. Thirty melon accessions were characterized by 15 SSR primers. SSR primers generated a total of 69 bands across the 30 melon accessions, of which 66 were polymorphic. The sizes of the bands ranged from 112 to 237 bp. Accessions Kav 13 and Kav 173 showed the largest genetic distance, while the accessions Kav 30 and Kav 39 (two Kirkagac type accessions from different geographic origin) were the most similar genotypes in the germplasm. Based on the pair-wise genetic distances obtained by SSR marker results, Hungarian accession S6 showed 62% similarity with the Turkish genotype Kav 16 and 50% with Kav 13. A clustering dendrogram based on the genetic distance matrix was produced by NTSYS-PC. Accessions were divided into two main groups (I-II). There were three sub-clusters (SC) within the two groups, two in cluster I and one in cluster II. The obtained data showed that the investigated germplasm contained high genetic variability.