The use of microsatellites to analyze relationship

Authors: Iris Foroni Claudio Baptista Lisandra Monteiro Maria S Lopes Duarte Mendonça Mónica Melo Conceição Carvalho Paulo Monjardino David J H Lopes Artur da Câmara Machado

Publish Date: 2012/04/29

Volume: 298, Issue: 7, Pages: 1297-1313

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Abstract

The objective of this study was to exploit the molecular and morphological variability present in Malus domestica to clarify the confused characterization of apple plantations in the Azores Most Azorean apples are grown in orchards They are usually given a local name and sometimes the same name is used for different cultivars and varieties which share morphology and should be known by different names Twohundred samples of apples cultivated in the Azores were analyzed by use of ten microsatellites The total number of alleles per locus ranged from 10 to 24 with a mean of 152 Heterozygosity was high reflecting the high variability of the samples Expected heterozygosity varied within a narrow range from 074 to 088 whereas observed heterozygosity ranged from 041 to 098 The high genetic variability contributed to the high discriminating power which ranged between 084 and 093 These microsatellites were used to unambiguously discriminate most of the tested apple cultivars on the basis of their allelic profiles The rooted UPGMA tree organized most of the samples into thirteen main clusters often with high bootstrap values We identified 60 synonyms and 32 homonyms among the samples Moreover it was possible to relate each individual to its originating population and detect likely parent–offspring groupsThe authors are extremely grateful to the association “Fruter” Associação de Produtores de Frutas de Produtores Hortícolas e Florícolas da Ilha Terceira for their assistance We thank “Direcção Regional do Desenvolvimento Agrário” for helping us to collect some of the plant material used in this study Special thanks go to Professor Keith Woeste of Department of Forestry and Natural Resources Purdue University West Lafayette Indiana USA for his critical reading of the entire manuscript We also thank Professor Margit Laimer of the Institute of Applied Microbiology IAM at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna Austria and the ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit at Cornell University Geneve New York for providing the standards used in this study This work was financed by the projects GERMOBANCO II 3/MAC/41/C15 and GERMOBANCO III 05/MAC/41/C15 and supported by grants FRCT/2007/M112 and FRCT/2009/M317

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