Variability of United States isolates of Macrophomina phaseolina based on simple sequence repeats and cross genus transferability to related genera within botryosphaeriaceae.

Twelve simple sequence repeat (SSRs) loci were used to evaluate genetic diversity of 109 isolates of Macrophomina phaseolina collected from different geographical regions and host species throughout the United States (US). Genetic diversity was assessed using Nei's minimum genetic distance, and the usefulness of each locus was determined by calculating the polymorphism information content (PIC). A total of 98 alleles were detected and of these 31 were unique to individual genotypes. Eight of twelve loci were highly informative with PIC values greater than 0.50. The majority of pairwise comparisons of genetic distance were greater than 0.60 indicating moderate to high genetic diversity. Dendrograms based on the genetic dissimilarities were created for the 109 isolates of which 79 were from soybean. Some clustering by host and geography was noted, but, the dendrograms generally grouped isolates independent of host or geography. Additionally, sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) for 10 isolates revealed that all of these isolates were 99% similar. Three SSR loci from M. phaseolina were cross amplified in other genera in the Botryosphaeriaceae. This was the first study of genotyping and assessing genetic diversity of M. phaseolina isolates collected from a widespread host and geographic range across the US with SSRs. With an additional 34 loci publically available for M. phaseolina, the results indicate that previously developed SSRs from one species can be used in future population, ecological, and genetic studies of M. phaseolina and other genera within the Botryosphaeriaceae.