Morphological and Genetic Diversity of Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Cultivars Grown in Pakistan and Identification of Novel Diversifying SNPs

Abstract Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is an important food crop cultivated across the world for its nutritive values and food security. Potato has huge genetic diversity contributed by different cultivars that are grown globally. The objective of this research was to evaluate morphological and genetic variation in potato cultivars grown in Pakistan through sequencing of selected mitochondrial and nuclear genes and some morphological characteristics. Seventeen morphological traits of six different cultivars were analyzed for morphological characterization. All cultivars exhibited variation in their morphological characteristics. DNA fragments of Malate dehydrogenase (~ 940bp) and Beta carotene hydrogenase 2 (~ 1400bp) from nuclear genome and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 2 gene from mitochondrial genome were sequenced. The molecular analysis has revealed the near complete identity among cultivars for Beta carotene hydrogenase 2 and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 2. Sequence analysis of Malate dehydrogenase has revealed the presence of three novel SNPs. An insertion of 13 nucleotide was also present in three cultivars. The cluster analysis has revealed two groups placing Cosmo and Hermes in one group and remaining four varieties in the separate group based on sequence data. Grouping of the cultivars based on morphological traits is different from those based on the genes studied thus showing no direct relation of the said genes with qualitative morphological traits.