Analysis of a germplasm collection of loquat using ISSR markers

Abstract

SummaryA collection of loquat germplasm from China, Japan, Spain, Italy, and the USA, consisting of 41 accessions (including eight wild species and 33 cultivars), was analysed using inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Twenty primers selected from 100 candidate primers were applied to the PCR amplifications, producing 436 bands, of which 392 bands (89.9%) were polymorphic. The average value of the effective number of alleles (Ne), Nei’s gene diversity (H), and Shannon’s information index (I) were 1.333, 0.209 and 0.332, respectively. There were 33 specific markers for the collection, but no markers were specific for the wild species or for the cultivars which flowered in Spring or in Autumn-Winter. According to the dendrogram, Spring-flowering accessions could not be clustered into one Group. The collection was divided into non-cultivated types and cultivated types, but the latter could not be classified further based upon a single trait. The experimental data are used to discuss genetic diversity and flowering-time as a criterion for the classification of wild species and cultivars, and the taxonomic status of Eriobotrya prinoides var. dadunensis.