Marcadores moleculares são ferramentas auxiliares nas análises da diversidade genômica dentro de uma espécie e para avaliar os relacionamentos entre indivíduos e populações. Dentre eles, os microssatélites (SSRs) é uma das classes de marcadores mais importante que pode ser usada com eficiência para distinguir acessos provenientes de um banco de germoplasma. Estes marcadores apresentam elevado grau de informação devido a sua herança co-dominante, multialelismo, padrão mendeliano e boa cobertura do genoma. A metodologia de enriquecimento para o desenvolvimento de microssatélites apresenta uma eficiência superior em plantas, especialmente quando se utiliza sondas marcadas com biotina e esferas magnéticas revestidas com estreptavidina. O desenvolvimento de EST-SSRs tem se tornado uma forma rápida para obtenção de marcadores moleculares, porém limitada a espécies para as quais existam bancos de sequências. Dado o elevado nível de polimorfismo dos microssatélites quando comparados com outros marcadores, estes têm sido utilizados em estudos da estrutura genética de populações, em análises de diversidade genética, em mapeamento genético e em seleção assistida por marcadores.

Molecular markers are powerful tools for analyzing genome diversity within a species, and to evaluate genetic relationships between individuals and populations. Among them, microsatellites (SSRs) are one of the most important polymorphic markers that can be used effectively to distinguish germplasm accessions. These markers present high informative content due to their codominant inheritance, multiallelism, mendelian pattern and good genome coverage. The enrichment methodology for microsatellite development has a superior efficiency in plants, especially when performed using biotin-labeled microsatellite oligoprobes and streptavidin-coated magnetic beads. The development of EST-SSR markers has become a fast and relatively inexpensive way but it is limited to species for which this type of database exists. Given the high polymorphism level of microsatellites when compared to other markers, SSRs have been used to study population structure, for genetic diversity analysis, genetic mapping and marker assisted selection.

A wide array of molecular markers has been used to investigate the genetic diversity among common bean species. However, the best combination of markers for studying such diversity among common bean cultivars has yet to be determined. Few reports have examined the genetic diversity of the carioca bean, commercially one of the most important common beans in Brazil. In this study, we examined the usefulness of two molecular marker systems (simple sequence repeats - SSRs and amplified fragment length polymorphisms - AFLPs) for assessing the genetic diversity of carioca beans. The amount of information provided by Roger's modified genetic distance was used to analyze SSR data and Jaccards similarity coefficient was used for AFLP data. Seventy SSRs were polymorphic and 20 AFLP primer combinations produced 635 polymorphic bands. Molecular analysis showed that carioca genotypes were quite diverse. AFLPs revealed greater genetic differentiation and variation within the carioca genotypes (Gst = 98% and Fst = 0.83, respectively) than SSRs and provided better resolution for clustering the carioca genotypes. SSRs and AFLPs were both suitable for assessing the genetic diversity of Brazilian carioca genotypes since the number of markers used in each system provided a low coefficient of variation. However, fingerprint profiles were generated faster with AFLPs, making them a better choice for assessing genetic diversity in the carioca germplasm.

Genetic diversity of 60 Hevea genotypes, consisting of Asiatic, Amazonian, African and IAC clones, and pertaining to the genetic breeding program of the Agronomic Institute (IAC), Brazil, was estimated. Analyses were based on phenotypic multivariate parameters and microsatellites. Five agronomic descriptors were employed in multivariate procedures, such as Standard Euclidian Distance, Tocher clustering and principal component analysis. Genetic variability among the genotypes was estimated with 68 selected polymorphic SSRs, by way of Modified Rogers Genetic Distance and UPGMA clustering. Structure software in a Bayesian approach was used in discriminating among groups. Genetic diversity was estimated through Nei's statistics. The genotypes were clustered into 12 groups according to the Tocher method, while the molecular analysis identified six groups. In the phenotypic and microsatellite analyses, the Amazonian and IAC genotypes were distributed in several groups, whereas the Asiatic were in only a few. Observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.05 to 0.96. Both high total diversity (H T' = 0.58) and high gene differentiation (Gst' = 0.61) were observed, and indicated high genetic variation among the 60 genotypes, which may be useful for breeding programs. The analyzed agronomic parameters and SSRs markers were effective in assessing genetic diversity among Hevea genotypes, besides proving to be useful for characterizing genetic variability.