Genetic relationship, population structure analysis and allelic characterization of flowering and maturity genes E1, E2, E3 and E4 among 90 Indian soybean landraces.

A set of 90 Indian soybean landraces were analysed for polymorphism at 43 SSRs and five allele specific markers of four major genes involved in regulating flowering and photoperiod response. A total of 42 polymorphic SSRs had amplified 126 alleles which served as raw data for estimation of genetic relationship and population structure among 90 accessions. Rare alleles of four and three SSRs were detected in accessions IC18768 and IC15089, respectively. Gene diversity in the population ranges from 0.065 to 0.717 with a mean value of 0.411. The polymorphism information content of 42 SSRs varied from 0.063 to 0.668. Hierarchical clustering based on neighbour-joining method identified three major clusters among 90 soybean accessions. Model based population structure analysis divided the 90 soybean accessions into four populations (K = 4). Mean value of Fst for different populations ranged between 0.4143 and 0.7239. Genotyping of 90 accessions with allele specific markers had identified accession IC15089 as triple recessive mutant of flowering genes E1, E2 and photoperiod sensitivity gene E3. The triple mutant IC15089 (e1, e3, e3) had been characterized phenotypically and identified as early maturing (88 days) and photoperiod insensitive genotype under extended photoperiod. The present study characterized genetic relationship among 90 Indian soybean landraces and had identified a few diverse and unique genotypes for utilization in soybean breeding programmes targeting development of short duration and photoperiod insensitive varieties through marker assisted selection.