[Genetic diversity of a germplasm collection of Cucumis melo L. using SRAP markers]

Genetic relationships and classifications of a set of melon accessions were analyzed to provide the experimental support for utilizing effectively genetic materials for breeding. Sequence-related amplified polymorphism technique was adopted to analyze 61 melon accessions. Sixteen primer combinations with clear band pattern and polymorphism were selected from over 42 primer combinations. Four hundred and fifty-two loci were detected by 16 pairs of SRAP primers. Among them, 265 were polymorphic, the polymorphic rate was 58.63%, and 28.56 loci and 16.56 polymorphic loci were amplified by each pairs of primers on average. The genetic similarity coefficient of the 61 accessions ranged from 0.48 to 0.93, with an average of 0.73. These results suggested that there was rich genetic diversity among the melon accessions tested. The varieties examined were clustered into two groups,which were thick-skinned melon and thin-skinned melon. Five groups were clustered according to genetic similarity coefficient of 0.74. The Nei's gene diversity index and Shannon's Information index of melon were 0.2231 and 0.3422, respectively, in Xinjiang, the highest among all the ecological regions.