Thesis (BS Biology) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, 2002

The genetic diversity analysis of abaca was done to compare the different accessions at the National Abaca Research Center (MARC), Leyte. The analysis was done using SSR technique. Ninety-four accessions were analyzed. Twenty-eight Musa SSR primers were used and surveyed for diversity analysis. Out of the seven primers that were optimized during the preliminary screening, only three primers (Ma 3/103, Ma 2/4 and Ma 1/016, were used for genetic diversity analysis. They proved to be useful and applicable for genetic diversity analysis of abaca. Out of 90 accessions, only 64 were used in the analysis. There were 33 alleles that were detected for the three primers, 21 of them were common alleles and 12 were rare alleles. For Ma 3/103, the frequencies of observed bands ranged from 1-11%, while Ma 2/4 3-36%, and Ma 1/016 2-25%. This showed that SSRs or microsatellites occur in abaca genome and that some Musa SSR primers can be used for abaca. There were 24 single-accession clusters and seven clusters with 2-9 identical accessions within cluster that were identified. The SSR data showed that a high degree of variability exists among the accessions collected from Leyte, Samar and Laguna that were used in this study. They also showed that the clusters did not correspond to the geographical origins of the accessions. They further showed that a high degree of duplication occurs in the collection. While these three primers proved to be useful in genetic diversity analysis, more primers should be optimized to ascertain that redundant accessions exist in the collection of NARC.