Abstract：In order to construct the fingerprinting of the main seedless watermelon(Citrullus lanatus) varieties to achieve fast and accurate identification and evaluate the genetic diversity, core simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to study the DNA fingerprinting and the genetic diversity of 54 seedless watermelon major varieties in China. Twenty three polymorphic primer pairs could amplify 63 genotypes, and 2.74 genotypes were detected by each primer pair with the range from 2 to 5. The polymorphic information content(PIC) values ranged from 0.04 to 0.67 with the mean of 0.39. Five varieties had unique bands. The genetic similarity coefficients of the 54 varieties ranged from 0.643 9 to 1.0 with the mean of 0.859 3, which indicated that the tested varieties had higher genetic similarity. Besides Xuefenghuapiwuzi and Zhengkangwuzi No.1, Zhengkangxin No.1 and Guangxi No.3、Heibaowuzi and Guiguan No.1, the other varieties could be separated clearly from each other. The standard fingerprinting of 5 main tested varieties was constructed using 10 pairs primer with PIC>0.4. Furthermore, all the varieties were classified into 7 groups, at the level of genetic similarity coefficient 0.82 according to cluster analysis by an un-weighted pair-group average method with arithmetic mean. This study established the standard DNA fingerprinting for seedless watermelon major varieties in China, which provids a technical foundation of varieties' authenticity identification and intellectual property protection.
