Development of EST-SSRs and Assessment of Genetic Diversity in Germplasm of the Finger Millet, Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) is widely cultivated in tropical regions worldwide owing to its high nutritional value. Finger millet is more tolerant against biotic and abiotic stresses such as pests, drought, and salt than other millet crops; therefore, it was proposed as a candidate crop to adapt to climate change in Korea. In 2019, we used expressed sequence tag simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers to evaluate the genetic diversity and structure of 102 finger millet accessions from two geographical regions (Africa and South Asia) to identify appropriate accessions and enhance crop diversity in Korea. In total, 40 primers produced 116 alleles, ranging in size from 135 to 457 bp, with a mean polymorphism information content (PIC) of 0.18225. Polymorphism was detected among the 40 primers, and 13 primers were found to have PIC values > 0.3. Principal coordinate and phylogenetic analyses, based on the combined data of both markers, grouped the finger millet accessions according to their respective collection areas.Therefore, the 102 accessions were classified into two groups, one from Asia and the other from Africa. We have conducted an in-depth study on the finger millet landrace pedigree. By sorting out and using the molecular characteristics of each pedigree, it will be useful for the management and accession identification of the plant resource. The novel SSR markers developed in this study will aid in future genetic analyses of E. coracana.