Molecular Polymorphisms in Tunisian Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) as Revealed by RAPD Fingerprints

Abstract

Abstract:The genetic diversity among Tunisian pomegranate cultivars has been investigated. Using universal primers, the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) method was used to generate banding profiles from a set of twelve cultivars. Data was then computed with appropriate programs to construct a dendrogram illustrating the relationships between the studied cultivars. Our data proved the efficiency of the designed method to examine the DNA polymorphism in this crop since the tested primers are characterized by a collective resolving power of 12.83. In addition, the cluster analysis has exhibited a parsimonious tree branching independent from the geographic origin of the cultivars. In spite of the relatively low number of primers and cultivars, RAPD constitutes an appropriate procedure to assess the genetic diversity and to survey the phylogenetic relationships in this crop.

A new strategy for complete identification of sea buckthorn cultivars by using random amplified polymorphic DNA markers

“…If optimization of the RAPD technique is conducted by choosing 11-nucleotide (nt) primers and strict screening of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) annealing temperature for each primer before RAPD is employed in fingerprinting plants, this method can be used for plant cultivar identification. RAPD markers have been widely used in cultivar identification and genetic relationship analysis of a number of fruit species, such as apricot (Ercisli et al, 2009), pomegranate (Hasnaoui et al, 2010), cherry (Demirsoy et al, 2008), pistachio (Javanshah et al, 2007), and strawberry (Wang et al, 2007). Despite their popularity, few DNA markers are available for plant identification.…”

Assessment of Genetic Variation within Commercial Iranian Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) Cultivars, Using ISSR and SSR Markers

“…A wide range of molecular markers has been used to assess genetic diversity of pomegranate cultivars as well as wild genotypes from different parts of the world. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers have provided reliable and highly polymorphic information to discriminate pomegranate cultivars (Narzary et al, 2009;Hasnaoui et al, 2010a). AFLPs (Amplified Fragments Length Polymorphism) are another marker, which has been used to evaluate genetic diversity within and among Chinese pomegranate populations (Yuan et al, 2007) and Tunisian cultivars (Jbir et al, 2008).…”

A novel strategy for identification of 47 pomegranate (Punica granatum) cultivars using RAPD markers

“…Compared to the main fruit crops, pomegranate has not been given much attention from geneticists, cytogeneticists or molecular biologists. There have been reports on pomegranate cultivar identification and genetic analysis using molecular markers (Talebi-Baddaf et al, 2003;Sarkhosh et al, 2006;Masoud et al, 2008;Ebrahimi et al, 2010;Hasnaoui et al, 2010;Pirseyedi et al, 2010). However, the studies on effective identification of pomegranate cultivar are limited, since they utilized selected statistical techniques known as cluster analysis to study the banding pattern.…”

“…If some optimization of the RAPD technique is achieved by choosing 11 nucleotide primers and strict screening PCR annealing temperature applied before the technique is employed in fingerprinting of plants, RAPD could be considered a preferred practical technique. To date, RAPD markers remain popular and have been used in the cultivar identification and genetic relationship analysis in a number of fruit tree species, such as apricot (Ercisli et al, 2009), pomegranate (Hasnaoui et al, 2010), cherry (Demirsoy et al, 2008), pistachio (Javanshah et al, 2007), and strawberry (Wang et al, 2007), etc. In practice, the powerful DNA markers available for plant identification have not made fruit crop variety identification an effective, recordable, and easy task as we measure the size of some plant parts using a ruler, which can be a rather awkward situation at times.…”