Assessing genetic variation using arbitrary oligonucleotide markers system in apple genotypes

Abstract

A core collection of 50 apple genotypes was taken into consideration to access the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship using arbitrary oligonucleotide RAPD and ISSR markers system. The level of polymorphism across the subjected genotypes was 67.26% and 64.56% by RAPD and ISSR markers, respectively. Dendrogram grouped the subjected apple genotypes among three major clusters with similarity coefficient ranging from 0.20 to 0.94 using RAPD and among four major clusters with similarity coefficient ranging from 0.40 to 0.94 using ISSR markers, respectively. Pooled RAPD and ISSR along with UPGMA clustering based on Jaccard’s similarity coefficient were estimated with a view to assess efficiency of the marker system in apple genotypes. The genotypes ‘Royal Delicious’ and ‘Snow Drift’ were found to be most distantly related to each other as revealed from pooled dendrogram analysis of both the markers. Estimates of pooled similarity coefficient ranging from 0.35 to 0.94 indicated a broad genetic base promising for application to future molecular screening, map construction, mining of desirable genes for genetic improvement of fruiting cultivars and comparative genomic studies, etc. Therefore, the obtained results in the present study confirmed the potential of subjected markers as a reliable, rapid and inexpensive discrimination method that could be helpful in framing more extensive studies on the determined apple genotypes.