To date, very limited molecular knowledge and molecular tools are available on grass pea
(Lathyrus sativus L.). Herein, we present a genetic diversity analysis of 20 grass pea accessions
collected from various regions of Ethiopia by means of seven newly developed Lathyrus
expressed sequence tag-derived simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers and four crosstransferable
EST-SSRs derived from Medicago truncatula L. Forty-five alleles were detected
among all the analyzed accessions. The number of alleles/locus ranged from two to seven
with an average of four alleles/locus. The observed heterozygosity (Ho) ranged from 0.320
to 0.504, while the expected heterozygosity (He) ranged from 0.354 to 0.470. FST values estimated
by analysis of molecular variance were 0.01, 0.15 and 0.84 for among regions, among
accessions and within accessions, respectively, indicating that most of the variation (84%)
resides within accession. The model-based cluster analysis grouped the accessions into
three clusters grouping accessions, irrespective of their collection regions.