Transferability of apple and pear SSRs to other temperate pome fruit crops of family Rosaceae

Abstract

Extensive use of simple sequence repeat (SSR) is facilitated if loci would be transferable across species even in closely related genera to overcome high cost and efforts involved in their development as major constraints. In the present study, apple and pear genomic microsatellite primer pairs were used to amplify SSR loci in apple, pear, quince and loquat genotypes, respectively. Already reported SSRs were selected based on their polymorphic survey for successful amplification with at least one polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product of the approximate size expected for a homologous locus screened among apple and pear genotypes for further transferability exploration across other temperate pome fruit crops, respectively. Highest transferability of apple and pear SSR, 61.53 % and 73.33 % was observed in closely related quince and apple genotypes, respectively. This indicated that primer binding sites between these two closely related genera, Malus and Pyrus, are fairly well conserved. Maximum transferability rate was found to be 93.33 % and 80.00 % across all the subjected genotypes for primer CH05D11 and TSUenh016 in apple and pear, respectively. The transferability of markers is based on genomic similarity, and can reflect the relationship of genome collinearity and even evolution between species. This high level of transferability of apple and pear SSRs to other temperate pome fruit crops indicated their promise for application to future molecular screening, map construction, and comparative genomic studies, etc.