Characterization of some domestic and foreign almond cultivars by SSR molecular markers

Almond is a hard-shelled and temperate climate fruit within Prunus L. species. Simple sequence repeats (SSR) are one of the most useful marker systems in the molecular characterization studies. This study was performed to determine genetic relationship and variation between some domestic and foreign almond cultivars. Totally 22 almond cultivars were used for molecular characterization by using 28 SSR loci. Totally, 265 alleles were generated from 28 SSR loci ranging from 2 to 14 alleles with an average of 9.46 per locus. All amplified alleles varied between 94 bp and 273 bp sizes. According to genetic diversity analysis, the mean of effective number of allele, observed heterozygosity and expected heterozygosity were calculated as 5.85, 0.75 and 0.76, respectively. The highest number of allele was detected in CPDCT042 with 14 alleles. On the other hands, while the highest expected heterozygosity was detected as 0.90 in CPDCT042 and UDAp-439 primers, the highest polymorphism information content were determined as 0.89 in CPDCT042 primer. UPGMA analysis was done in 22 almond cultivars using 265 alleles. The cultivars separated into two main clusters as "Turkish' and 'Foreign'. The highest distance between cultivars was identified between 'Akbadem' and 'Nikitsky' cultivars based on their similarity coefficient. As a result, the results in this study will provide useful information for future breeding and genetic studies in almond. Key Words: Almond, SSR, Prunus, genetic similarity, characterization