Genetic analysis of Anatolian apples (Malus sp.) by simple sequence repeats

Abstract

The apple is one of the most important fruit species in the world. Turkey has a diverse and ancient apple germplasm that have played a major role in the domestication of the Malus genus. However, so far locally grown Anatolian apple germplasm has largely been uncharacterized. In this study, 171 local apple (M. domestica Borkh.) accessions originated from eco‐geographically diverse regions of Anatolia were studied using 16 SSR (simple sequence repeat) loci, which generated 254 alleles. Of the SSR markers used, the CH04g10 locus showed the highest allele diversity. Relatively high genetic similarities were found between some accessions. The factorial correspondence analysis did not clearly separate different all apple accession groups, suggesting that Anatolian apple accessions are highly intermixed. However, most apple accessions were grouped according to their collection sites in structure analyses. In addition, reflecting the richness of the Anatolian apple germplasm, low numbers of synonymous, and identical accessions were identified among the germplasm. Finally, using the publically available SSR data generated in other studies, we investigated genetic relationships between Anatolian accession groups and European apple accession groups. Our results reported here provide a useful base for future studies aimed at investigating the genetic diversity of wild and cultivated apples from Anatolia and the surrounding regions.

Genetic structure and diversity of European chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) populations in western Balkans: On a crossroad between east and west

“…Introgression of fruit germplasm, from Turkey to western Balkan, has previously been reported by BURAK et al (2014) and AKÇAY et al (2014), who analyzed the SSR data obtained from traditional Turkish apple and pear cultivars respectively, together with the microsatellite profiles published by GASI et al (2010) and GASI et al (2013), on traditional apple and pear genotypes from Bosnia and Herzegovina.…”

Genetic characterisation and population structure analysis of Anatolian figs (Ficus carica L.) by SSR markers

“…DNA was extracted from leaf tissue as described by Lefort et al (1998) and its concentration was estimated spectrophotometrically as described in detail by Akçay et al (2014) and Burak et al (2014).…”

“…Capillary electrophoresis conditions were previously described by Akçay et al (2014) and Burak et al (2014) in detail. A Beckman CEQ fragment analysis software was used to determine the allele size of each SSR locus.…”

“…For each locus, the number of alleles (n), allele frequency, expected (He) and observed heterozygosity (Ho) and the probability of identity (PI) values were calculated as previously described (Akçay et al, 2014;Burak et al, 2014). The software IDENTITY was used to detect identical accessions; the proportion of shared alleles was calculated using Microsat (version 1.5) (Minch et al, 1995) and a dendrogram was constructed with the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) method (Sneath and Sokal, 1973), using the software NTSYS-pc (Numerical Taxonomy and Multiware Analysis System) (version 2.0) (Rohlf, 1988).…”

Genetic diversity and apple leaf spot disease resistance characterization assessed by SSR markers

“…Among the molecular ones, microsatellite markers (SSR-simple sequence repeats) are highly polymorphic, multiallelic, co-dominant, reproducible and are distributed throughout the entire genome, making them ideal for revealing genetic diversity (Morgante et al 2002). Therefore, the use of molecular markers to access the apple germplasm is a trustworthy tool (Gustavsson et al 2008, Zhuang et al 2011, Potts et al 2012, Reim et al 2013, Burak et al 2014. Almost 400 microsatellite markers have already been identified and mapped in Malus and other fruit species (Guilford et al 1997, Liebhard et al 2002, Silfverberg-Dilworth et al 2006, Han and Korban 2008.…”