Assessment of the genetic diversity and the relationship among common bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) accessions from dr-congo germplasm using ssr molecular markers

The genetic diversity of Common bean accessions from the germplasm of INERA in DR-Congo was assessed to understand their phylogeny relationship using SSR molecular markers. A set of 91 accessions, comprising 21 from CIAT/Columbia, 36 from Mvuazi, 30 from Mulungu and 4 from Gandajika, were genotyped with 12 SSR markers that generated 89 alleles with an average of 7 alleles per locus. Polymorphism information content (PIC) value was 0.64 indicating a fair diversity with a range of 0.40-0.82. The average heterozygosity level per locus was 0.24. The variability was as low as 1% among the populations, 64% within individual and 35% within population. Clustering analysis based on the genetic similarity grouped the 91 Common bean genotypes into 2 main distinct clusters. Information generated from this study can be driven to select parents for breeding or develop hybrid lines for yield increase, high biomass, resistance against abiotic/biotic stresses and segregating populations to map genes/QTLs for yield in Common bean in the western DR-Congo.