Abstract
Genetic diversity was investigated in a set of thirty-three hexaploid wheat genotypes originated from Egypt, using 17 wheat microsatellites, representatives of fifteen wheat chromosomes. In total, ninety-five alleles were detected among Egyptian wheats. For 17 polymorphic microsatellite markers, the number of alleles per locus varied from 3 for Xgwm261-2DS, Xgwm3-3DL and Xgwm631-7AS to 11 for Xgwm437-7DL, with a mean of 5.59 alleles per locus. The highest average number of alleles per locus was detected in the B genome with 6.00, compared to 5.67 and 5.00 for genomes D and A, respectively. The highest and the lowest average number of alleles per locus among the wheat homoeologous groups were observed in group 7 and 3 with 7.00 and 4.00, respectively. Gene diversity for 17 microsatellites loci varied from 0.339 for Xgwm631-7AS to 0.845 for Xtaglgap-1BS with an average of 0.653. However, the gene diversity for three genomes A, B and D was 0.549, 0.718 and 0.674, respectively. A significant correlation coefficient between gene diversity and the number of alleles per locus, genomes and homoeologous groups was high, r = 0.649, 0.988 and 0.272 (P < 0.01), respectively. The gene diversity increased as the number of alleles increased. Cluster analysis was conducted based on microsatellites data. Five groups can be distinguished by truncating the dendrogram at genetic similarity (gs) value of 0.48. The present study indicated the presence of high diversity in Egyptian wheat genotypes.