ISHS Acta Horticulturae 546: International Symposium on Molecular Markers for Characterizing Genotypes and Identifying Cultivars in Horticulture
THE USE OF MICROSATELLITES TO ESTABLISH UNIQUE FINGERPRINTS FOR APPLE CULTIVARS AND SOME OF THEIR DESCENDANTS |
| Authors: | K. Kenis, E. Pauwels, N. Van Houtvinck, J. Keulemans |
| Keywords: | SSR markers, Malus x domestica Borkh., polymorphism, identification |
| Abstract:
The aims of this study were to identify descendants from different apple cultivars definitively and to check their supposed parents. Fifteen different microsatellite primer combinations were used to establish unique fingerprints of 28 apple cultivars and 42 promising genotypes of crosses between them. One of the primer combinations gave a double set of nonlinked polymorphic fragments, which indicated that all the cultivars and progenies were screened at sixteen different loci. To be sure that the fingerprints were unique, 80 F1 genotypes of one progeny were analysed with the same microsatellites, all of which were easily distinguished. The results of the analysis of the cultivars and some of their descendants, confirmed the high degree of heterozygosity within apple. Most of the microsatellites showed two different alleles within one genotype. If only one allele was found in a genotype, it was not always clear if this allele was present in a homozygous status or if it was present in combination with a null allele. However, occasionally, the results of the fingerprints of the descendants revealed the presence of a null allele in the parent. The total number of alleles detected for each microsatellite locus varied from 4 to 13 for all the 28 tested cultivars with an average of 8.7 alleles for each microsatellite locus. The fingerprints revealed that the supposed parent cultivars of a certain genotype were not always correct which indicates that uncontrolled cross-pollination can occur or that even mixing up seed is possible. | |
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