Abstract
Problem statement: Peach genotypes from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were not adequately characterized at the biological and molecular levels. This study was carried out to characterize nine peach cultivars growing in Taif (KSA) at the biological and molecular levels. Approach: For the nine peach cultivars studied, flowering and fruiting indices were determined and eight, 10-base primers were used to amplify DNA from each cultivar by using Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technology. RAPD profiles (i.e., cultivars) and RAPD amplicons (i.e., markers) were biclustered by using appropriate software and the RAPD biclusters were viewed as a heatmap in order to improve the display of RAPD markers. Results: The different RAPD primers produced a total of 114 fragments (amplicons), of which 63 were polymorphic among the studied cultivars. The RAPD fingerprinting results confirmed the data obtained from the morphological analyses and allowed for estimating the genetic relatedness among the studied peach cultivars. Moreover, the data indicated that certain molecular markers might be associated with certain commercial characteristics. Conclusion/Recommendations: Future studies on the association(s) of the selected molecular markers with fruiting characteristics should allow for new gene discovery, molecular breeding, proper biodiversity assessment and better conservation of germplasm resources.
Highlights
The International Peach Genome Initiative (IPGI) has released the early online access to the draft assembled and annotated peach genome sequence. This has opened a new era in the genomics of Prunus species and stimulated the interest in the discovery of nucleotide variability within the peach germplasm through whole genome resequencing of the divergent peach accessions
Expressed sequence tags (EST) were used for genome annotation, gene expression, and comparative genomics between Prunus species (Li et al, 2010), and identification of genes involved in fruit development and maturation (Falchi et al 2010), signaling pathway leading from photoperiod perception to growth cessation and dormancy (Jimenez et al, 2010)
Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprinting confirmed the morphological analyses results and provided certain molecular markers that might be associated with certain commercial characteristics
Summary
RAPD ten fruits with the same diameter, skin color and PCR was used to profile nine peach cultivars growing firmness were selected as representative samples, in Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These cultivars were divided into two groups (five fruits for each) and characterized at the biological level with respect to analyzed within 24 h for quantitative and sensory several flowering and fruiting parameters. These markers were used to rapidly discriminate peach cultivars and to reveal possible correlations between these molecular markers and important peach traits To this end, genomic DNA prepared from the nine peach cultivars was used in PCRs primed with eight RAPD primers (Fig. 3). The different RAPD primers produced a total of 114 fragments (Table 2), of which 63 (55%) were
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