The present study reports isolation and characterization of ten polymorphic SSR markers developed from common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench). These SSR markers produced a total of 59 alleles across 41 common buckwheat accessions with an average of 5.9 alleles per locus. Values for observed (HO) and expected (HE) heterozygosities ranged from 0.071 to 0.924 (mean=0.53) and from 0.073 to 0.902 (mean=0.412), respectively. At significance threshold (P<0.05), seven loci deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE), whereas significant linkage disequilibrium (LD) values were observed between 5 pairs of loci. These markers are currently being used for programming of the genetic conservation and classification of common buckwheat germplasm collection.

There are about 16 species included in Fagopyrum (Polygonaceae) genus and some of them have been found recently and named. Fagopyrum genus is generally divided into two major groups: cymosum and urophyllum group. This study is to analyze the genetic diversity of Fagopyrum genus, to compare with the phylogeny result of Fagopyrim using previous analysis results, and to provide the information of each species specific marker by executing the cross-amplification on 3 species and 2 sub-species among cymosum group and 5 species among urophyllum using 136 SSR markers newly developed from common buckwheat. Cluster analysis using UPGMA showed two main clusters, each of the cymosum and urophyllum group. This result agree well with the previous findings on species relationships in Fagopyrum using different method approachs. In cross species amplification, our results revealed significant transferability of F. esculentum microsatellites to the 4 cymosum species (96.3% in F. esculentum ssp. Ancestral, 61.0% in F. tataricum ssp. tataricum, 36.0% in F. tataricum ssp. potanini, 97.1% in F. homotropicum). However, the percentage of 136 SSR markers were amplified in the urophyllum species (50.7% in F. urophyllum, 50% in F. lineare, 60.3% in F. leptopodum, 66.9% in F. capillatum, 66.2% in F. gracilipes) was lower than cymosum species, except F. tataricum. In addition, we identified 61 species specific markers among each species. These results demonstrate wide potential applicabilityof these markers for the study of inter-specific genetic diversity as well as evolutionary relationships among cultivated and wild buckwheat.