Application of High-Throughput Sequencing to Evaluate the Genetic Diversity Among Wild Apple Species Indigenous to Shandong, China, and Introduced Cultivars

Abstract

The Taiyi mountainous region of Shandong province in eastern China has an abundance of wild Malus species. We evaluated the genetic diversity of 88 Malus accessions (45 Asian apple cultivars, 10 American apple cultivars, 12 European apple cultivars, 19 Chinese wild apples, and two apple cultivars with unknown origins) based on single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. A total of 38,364 SNPs were obtained with an average of 2256 SNPs per chromosome. The average of the polymorphism information content (PIC), gene diversity, and allele frequency for SNPs was 0.268, 0.306, and 0.364, respectively. A circular phylogenetic tree constructed based on SNP data revealed that the 88 Malus accessions could be divided into three groups. However, a population structure analysis suggested the 88 Malus accessions could be divided into four groups. A principal component analysis (PCA) revealed some population stratification. The first three PCs accounted for 41.62% of the population-wide SNP variation, with PC1 accounting for 33.9%. Moreover, the kinship values of the 88 Malus accessions ranged from 0 to 2.36, with 96.42% of the kinship values between 0 and 0.2. A phylogenetic tree and a PCA indicated the Chinese wild apples widely distributed among the cultivated apples had a diverse genetic background. Characterizing the genetic relationships between cultivated apples and Chinese wild apples is essential for increasing the genetic diversity of the germplasms used by apple breeders.