Evaluation of Genetic Relatedness Among Temperate Pome Fruit Crops of Family Rosaceae Using Arbitrary Oligonucleotide Markers

Abstract

A rationale use of the genetic resources in breeding programs requires an understanding of relationships within and among related crop varieties. In the present study, genetic relatedness among fifty genotypes of temperate pome fruit crops (apple, pear, quince and loquat) of family Rosaceae growing in Himachal Pradesh (India) was tested using arbitrary oligonucleotide random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) molecular marker analyses. The level of polymorphism across the subjected genotypes was 97.29 and 97.45 % by RAPD and ISSR markers, respectively. The dendrograms derived from RAPD and ISSR analysis grouped temperate pome fruit crops into two major clusters comprising of 40 and 10 genotypes which branched at similarity value of 0.31 and 0.33, respectively. Estimates of pooled similarity coefficient ranging from 0.30 to 0.94 indicated their promise for application to future molecular screening, map construction and comparative genomic studies, etc. Therefore, these results could be helpful in framing more extensive studies on the determined taxa.