Using SSR markers from Prunus genus for wild cherry genotyping

Abstract

Prunus genus include fruit and wooden species. Because its economic importance, both phenotypic and genetic markers have been developed and used in genetic studies. Among them, for their versatility, degree of transferability and repeatability, some microsatellite sets have been developed for several species from this genus.
Although they have been successfully used inside the Rosaceae family, their transferability to other species and/or provenances different for what they were designed, must be first assessed. Thus, the higher the number of markers assessed, the higher their applicability for performing genetic studies. Hence, the functionality of 20 microsatellite markers designed for P. persica (L.) Batsch and P. avium L. were tested for genotyping a wild cherry progeny for wood production. Scorable amplifications and reasonably high polymorphism were registered for 13 out of 20 SSR assessed, averaging 7.7 alleles/ locus. The observed heterozygosity ranges from 0.513 to 0.946; with allelic frequencies below 0.50, except for two loci. The individual discriminative power goes from 0.045 to 0.250; while the combined random probability of identity was as low as 1.8114x10-13, allowing to identify and to differentiate unambiguously individuals in the sample formed by 36 trees. According these results, this set has showed its potential for genotyping plus trees from wild cherry for wood production.