2018 Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 8-13
Myanmar is one of the centers of genetic diversity of rice as it has heterogeneous geographical and ecological conditions such as hills and mountains. Since 1988, owing to market oriented economic policy and international rice price, traditional varieties have been replaced by improved varieties. Landraces are known for the excellent adaptation to the local conditions; however, their productivity is very low. Increased productivity of the landraces through high input application has not been possible because they are not responsive to the inputs. However, these landraces and traditional varieties possess very useful and important traits for further breeding and genetic improvement of rice. Thus, there is an urgent need for germplasm collection, their conservation and characterization to study the diversity of traditional rice varieties in Myanmar. In recent years, DNA sequence variations have been used as markers for genome analysis since they are independent of environment and growth stages of plant and more reliable than the other phenotypic or biochemical markers. Of the different types of molecular markers, microsatellites have been utilized most extensively, because they can be readily amplified by PCR, present large amount of allelic variation at each locus, are highly informative, and require small amounts of DNA. They have become the versatile molecular markers not only for germplasm diversity studies but also for exploration of targeted gene. In Myanmar, some research on rice landrace diversity by using microsatellites has been done. Therefore, this review aims to take stock of the current status and summarize genetic diversity studies of traditional rice varieties in Myanmar, through the use of microsatellite markers.
