Molecular characterization of apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) cultivars using cross species SSR amplification with peach primers

Abstract

Apricot takes an important place in Hungarian fruit production. Considering morphological characteristics of apricots it was concluded that the genetics background of European cultivars is very limited. Molecular markers and their use for genotyping have revolutionized the identification of cultivars. In a classic apricot breeding program, it is important to be able to establish unique DNA profiles of selections to identify them unambiguously and to determine their genetic relationship. Presently SSR is far the most frequently performed technique for genetic diversity studies. In this study there were used peach and apricot primer pairs from four different sources in order to examine microsatellite polymorphism among cultivars and investigate relationships among them. The possibility of cross species amplification among different Prunus species using SSR primers allowed us to use primers developed in peach to study genetic diversity in apricot. In this work, 90% of the primers used were able to amplify SSRs in apricot and more than half of them were polymorphic. With the 10 primer pairs utilized were proven to be sufficient to set unique fingerprint for several cultivars studied. The obtained dendrogram classified of the 45 cultivars included in this study into two major groups and several subgroups.

Molecular Characterization of Genetic Diversity in Apricot Cultivars: Current Situation and Future Perspectives

“…The mean observed heterozygosity was lower in the landraces (0.68) compared to the recent releases (0.77) and commercial cultivars (0.77) although without significant differences (p < 0.05). These values are higher than those in previous studies of diversity in apricot (0.51 [22]; 0.32 [51]; 0.52 [52]; 0.63 [19]; 0.58 [53]; 0.68 [23]; 0.65 [54]; 0.39 [15]; 0.52 [27]; 0.63 [55]; 0.36 [26]; 0.72 [20]; 0.65, 0.66 [21]). In the landraces, the expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.57 to 0.84, with a mean value of 0.73.…”

Discovery of non-climacteric and suppressed climacteric bud sport mutations originating from a climacteric Japanese plum cultivar (Prunus salicina Lindl.)

“…The number of alleles per locus (17.0) and expected heterozygosity (0.85) obtained in the present population (Table 3 ) are equal to (Carrasco et al, 2012 ) or greater than previous studies on Prunus populations (Casas et al, 1999 ; Ahmad et al, 2004 ; Mnejja et al, 2004 ; Dangl et al, 2009 ; Font i Forcada et al, 2012 ). The diversity we found in plum was greater than that of other Prunus species: peach (Font i Forcada et al, 2012 ), almond (Fernández i Martí et al, 2014 ), apricot (Hormaza, 2002 ; Ruthner et al, 2006 ) or sweet cherry (Fernández i Martí et al, 2012 ). The high heterozygosity in plum may be due to the self-incompatibility of different Prunus species.…”

Characterization of Wild Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) Genotypes Selected from Cappadocia Region (Nevşehir-Turkey) by SSR Markers

“…SSR markers are also used in genetic characterization of Prunus species, including apricots. However, SSR markers were not developed at the same rates for each one of the significant species (apricot, peach, plum, and almond), thus potential use of SSR markers of a species in other Prunus species (crosstransferability) have become a significant issue (Hormaza 2002;Romero et al 2003;Zhebentyayeva et al 2003;Hagen et al 2004;Messina et al 2004;Mnejja et al 2005;Sanchez-Perez et al 2005;Ruthner et al 2006;Bouhadida et al 2009;Wünsch 2009;Akpınar et al 2010;Bourguiba et al 2010;Liu et al 2013;Wang et al 2014;Eroglu & Cakir 2015;Gürcan et al 2015;Murathan et al 2017).…”