GENETIC VARIABILITY OF Carthamus tinctorius L. MICROSATELLITES MARKERS.
Safflower; SSR; Genetic Improvement.
The safflower culture (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is one of the oldest in the world, being considered an oleaginous belonging to the Asteraceae family, whose raw material is destined for various purposes such as the production of lubricants, biofuels, soaps, varnishes, cooking oil and animal feed. The safflower culture is a very relevant oleaginous, it has attracted the attention of researchers and industries for having high quality and quantity of oil, being important the accomplishment of studies, mainly in the genetic improvement, that helps in the selection of superior genotypes. In this context, the evaluation of genetic variability with the use of markers is essential for the exploitation of genetic resources in plant breeding programs. Therefore, this work aimed to estimate the genetic variability of 121 safflower genotypes via 21 SSR molecular markers from the Genetic Resources & Biotechnology Laboratory (LRG&B) of the State University of Mato Grosso "Carlos Alberto Reyes Maldonado" (UNEMAT), Campus of Cáceres-MT. The study was conducted in the laboratory and in the vegetation house of LRG&B with controlled humidity and temperature. 121 safflower genotypes were evaluated, 11 of which were not used because they were from populations containing only one genotype, thus avoiding the overestimation of this information for these individuals, so the analyses were made with 110 genotypes from ten different populations. The genetic diversity of the 121 safflower genotypes was estimated by means of number of alleles, mean heterozygosity observed (Ho), mean heterozygosity expected (He) and inbreeding coefficient (F). The number of alleles detected among the genotypes considering the 21 loci was 158, ranging from six (CT6, CT12, CT13 and CT19) to 11 (CT26), with a mean of 8 alleles per locus. The He can be considered high, ranging from 0.551 to 0.80, with an average of 0.71, while the Ho was low, ranging from 0.00 to 0.50, with an average of 0.03. F results were positive in all locus and in all populations, with a general average of 0.95. The high and positive F values are due to He levels in relation to Ho, both for each locus and in each population, indicating a probable inbreeding process.