Abstract

A collection of ten cultivars of tomato grown in Egypt were screened with 20 simple sequence repeat (SSR) primers in order to determine genetic identities, genetic diversity and genetic relationships among these cultivars. On an average, 38 alleles were amplified using SSR primers with scorable fragment sizes ranging from approximately 75 to 275 bp. 23 alleles were polymorphic thus revealing 60.5% of polymorphism. The genetic similarity estimated according to SSR data was scaled between 17.6 and 93.2%, suggesting the potential of SSR markers in discrimi nating among plants of close or distant genetic backgrounds. Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) clustering grouped the cultivars into two groups where the two Egyptian cultivars Edkawy and Giza 80 were clustered in different group. In addition, clustering was found consistent with the known information regarding growth habit. The genetic distance information obtained in this study might be useful to breeder for planning crosses among these cultivars.

Key words: Tomato cultivars, diversity, Simple sequence repeats (SSR), Egypt