Genetic diversity and relationships in Sicilian olive germplasm collections as determined by RAPD markers.

摘要

At present, the olive tree collection of the CRA-Istituto Sperimentale per l'Olivicoltura (CRA-ISOI) is the largest Italian germplasm collection and contains at least 400 Italian olive cultivars. As such, it provides an opportunity to study the DNA relationships in cultivars for subsequent identification of trees of unknown parentage. The aim of this report was to estimate the genetic variability among 44 Sicilian olive accessions and contribute to the clarification of problems related to cases of homonymy and synonymy using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. Young leaves were collected from 44 accessions of the CRA-ISOI collection. Thirty-nine random decamers were screened as primers for PCR amplifications and 406 reproducible amplification fragments were used as polymorphic markers. The samples were analysed several times and the data assembled into a data matrix for cluster analysis. All cultivars were readily separated from one another. Our results showed that the use of RAPD molecular markers is efficient for olive germplasm identification and can be employed to characterize accessions and establish genetic relationships between cultivars in the CRA-ISOI Sicilian olive collection. In addition, we constructed a molecular data base that can be used to make a reference collection of Sicily olive germplasm by comparing the molecular pattern of each identified accession..