Abstract
Soybean (Glycine max) is one of the most important crops in the world in terms of total production and usage. Evaluation of gene bank accessions such as the international collections of soybean (Glycine max) of the Plant Gene Resources of Canada has not been undertaken at the molecular level. The main objectives of the present study were to 1) determine the level of genetic variation and distance among G. max accessions from the international collections of the Plant Gene Resources of Canada and 2) develop and characterize accession-diagnostic inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and sequence-characterized amplified region (SCAR) markers that can be used in soybean molecular breeding programs. Genomic DNAs from 108 soybeans (G. max) accessions from 11 different countries were analyzed using ISSR primers. The levels of polymorphic loci detected were in general moderate varying from 29% to 52%. Overall, 82% of genetic distance values among accessions were above 0.40 based on ISSR analysis. This suggests that the genetic diversity among and within soybean accessions might not be as low as other studies have demonstrated. The soybean accessions from the Netherlands, China, France, and Sweden were the least genetically variable. The dendrograms constructed with ISSR data revealed that the South Korean accessions formed an out-group. The ISSR markers successfully distinguished soybean accessions within each group (country). In fact, several accession-diagnostic markers were identified in each of the 11 groups. They represent useful tools in soybean molecular breeding programs. One accession-diagnostic marker was cloned, sequenced, and converted to a SCAR marker.