Genetic diversity and nutritional quality of common white bean(Phaseolus vulgaris L.) ‘Zicca janca’ from Calabria.

Biodiversity is essential for food security and for improving both the sustainability of agriculture and its capacity to deliver safe, nutritious products for a healthy diet. Conservation of genetic resources has become, one of the most urgent objectives of applied research to agro-food related crops. The growing of consumers interest in relation to the quality and typicality of agri-food products and their link with tradition and the production area, promote the establishment of strategies finalized to the recovery and valorization of local ecotypes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity and nutritional quality of genotypes of the round white bean called 'Zicca janca' from Calabria region. The proposed action is a first step for the recovery and valorization of biodiversity in a typical food system, which in recent years showed a trend to disappear as a result of continued neglect of agricultural activities and rural inland areas of Calabria. The germplasm characterization was carried out by bean samples from two collection programs (2014 and 2015) taking into account altimetry of the area of origin and the main morphological characteristics of the plant. Of all genotypes under observation was made the genetic characterization by microsatellite markers (or SSR). 8 nuclear genetic markers were selected, useful to highlight the level of polymorphisms of DNA sequences of each microsatellite and identify the characteristic repeat patterns for the bean called ‘zicca janca’. The genetic comparison was made by analyzing the variety of interests in the context of typical grain legumes of the Calabria region (ARSAC gemoplasm bank, Paterno Calabro - CS), researching the diversity among the different accessions and analyzing the genetic distance matrix. The Principal Coordinates Analysis has identified a total variability referring respectively to the axis 1 and axis 2 pariah to 27% and 17%. The AMOVA analysis, finally, has allowed to establish, among the analyzed accessions, a molecular variance distribution of 63%. The study included the chemical and nutritional characterization of white bean 'Zicca janca'.