RAPD MARKER BASED GENETIC DIVERSITY ANALYSIS OF SOME TOMATO BREEDING LINES

This study was conducted to evaluate the genetic diversity among 30 tomato breeding lines. For molecular characterization, RAPD (Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA) markers, viz., OPA-12, OPC-11, OPK-09 and OPY-18 showed good technical resolution and sufficient variations among the genotypes. The four primers produced polymorphic bands in 11 polymorphic loci. OPA-12 produced maximum polymorphic bands in 120-850 bp compare to others. All the genotypes produced polymorphic bands with four tested RAPD markers suggesting that the genotypes were different from each other but genetic diversity were narrow among the genotypes. Genetic diversity for entire genotypes of tomato was 0.1981 and Shannon's information index was 0.1764.  Genetic distance (GD) between tomato genotypes were computed from combined data for the four primers and the values ranged from 0.0000 to 0.3. The Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) cluster analysis divided genotypes into two main groups. The first group was the largest and consisted of 18 genotypes and other group consists of 12 genotypes.