Characterization of hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) genotypes by SSR markers

Abstract

Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) is an edible wild fruit that is used in traditional medicine, landscape studies, and food and beverage industries in many countries. It is an important wild plant species in Turkey and is numerous in the Yozgat Province. Genetic and breeding studies on hawthorn are very limited. Therefore, we aimed to characterize 91 hawthorn genotypes using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The SSRs were developed from apple and pear and were screened in hawthorn for amplification and polymorphisms. A total of 265 alleles were detected from thirty-two SSR primer pairs, and those were used to identify genetic relationships. The number of alleles ranged from 2 to 21 alleles per locus with a mean value of 8.28. The Hi05b09 locus showed the highest allele number (Na = 21). The polymorphism information content (PIC) values ranged from 0.16 (CH03d10) to 0.89 (C6554) with a mean value of 0.60. An Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Average method was used to cluster the genotypes, and four major clusters were obtained from the amplification of the SSRs. STRUC-TURE software identified four populations (DK = 4) and eight sub-populations (DK = 8), and four major clusters similar results to UPGMA analysis. Our study showed that the SSR markers could be utilized as a reliable tool for the determination of genetic variations and relationships of hawthorn genotypes. A basic molecular analysis on the hawthorn genotypes identified in this study will promote the collection of germplasm collection and the selection of parents' in future cross-breeding studies.

Genetic Diversity among Some Walnut (Juglans regia L.) Genotypes by SSR Markers

“…Molecular markers are evaluated with high reliability in determining diversity among plant population and also plant genotypes in the population. Briefly, molecular markers facilitate to establish the relationship between phenotypic and genotypic diversity [11]. Today, molecular markers have been efficient tools for the description of genetic differences among plants.…”

“…To date, many molecular marker technologies have been developed and have been used in studies such as identification, characterization, genetic mapping, marker-based selection, etc. of plant cultivars and accessions [10][11][12][13][14]. Among PCR-based molecular markers used to determine genetic relationships in plants, SSRs are preferred due to their advantages of being codominant, redundancy in the genome, being high polymorphism, and repeatability.…”

Genetic diversity detection of seed-propagated walnut (Juglans regia L.) germplasm from Eastern Anatolia using SSR markers

“…The traditional identification method by examining morphological features requires skilled professionals, which corresponds to the cost of genetic analysis. Furthermore, the approach is timeconsuming and laborious, and it depends on the season (Ercisli et al, 2008;Guney et al, 2018). Conversely, DNA molecular marker technology can be used without the influence of environmental conditions and is relatively quick, inexpensive and extremely accurate in identifying varieties (Eyduran et al, 2016;Poczai et al, 2013).…”

Molecular Analysis of Evolution and Origins of Cultivated Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) and Related Species in China

“…Plant DNA contains abundant genetic information, and an increasing number of researchers have explored interspecific relationships and diversification of plants using molecular marker information. Molecular markers are used to determine genetic relationships within plant populations with almost 100% reliability (Güney et al, 2018), and random amplified repeats (Erfani-Moghadam et al, 2016; Zarei et al, 2017), inter-simple sequence repeats (Sheng et al, 2017; Emami et al, 2018), and SSRs (Lo et al, 2009; Khiari et al, 2015; Brown et al, 2016) have been widely used for genetic characterization of Crataegus , and to analyze genetic diversity among and within accessions of Crataegus . Of these molecular markers types, SSR markers have attained considerable popularity in genetic research because they are highly polymorphic, convenient, and codominant.…”