High Levels of Heterozygosity Found for 15 SSR Loci in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Solanum chacoense</Emphasis>

Wild species-related germplasm is widely used to introduce new alleles and/or increase heterozygosity in cultivated species. Twenty-four SSR markers, specifically designed for cultivated potatoes, were evaluated to determine the extent of genetic variation within and among ten accessions of Solanum chacoense (chc). Fifteen of these markers were informative: there was no polymorphism in one of the markers, four of the markers showed evidence that more than one locus was being amplified, and the other four markers failed to consistently amplify products. Heterozygosity in these 10 accessions ranged from 33% to 87%. Variation among accessions was the largest proportion of variance for three markers, variation among genotypes within accessions was the largest proportion for three markers, and for the other nine markers variation within genotypes (chromosome to chromosome) was the largest proportion. Genetic similarity averaged 29.5% across markers. Where accessions have already been screened and found to possess the trait of interest, multiple genotypes from those accessions should be evaluated to identify genotypes with the greatest expression of the trait.