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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Assessment of genetic diversity of Latvian and Swedish sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) genetic resources collections by using SSR (microsatellite) markers

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Abstract Three previously described highly polymorphic SSR (microsatellite) primer pairs were tested on 126 sweet cherry ( Prunus avium L.) accessions to adapt a fast, reliable method for preliminary screening of sweet cherry germplasm collections and to compare two sweet cherry germplasm collections: at the Latvia State Institute of Fruit-Growing, Dobele (LIFG-Dobele) and at the Division of Horticultural Genetics and Plant Breeding at Balsgard, Department of Crop Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU-Balsgard). The SSR loci were highly polymorphic with 4–10 different alleles and 5–18 genotypes. Heterozygosity values ranged from 0.431 to 0.809, gene diversity (PIC) values ranged from 0.400 to 0.753, and the discriminating power of each locus varied from 0.631 to 0.894. The combined discriminating power of all loci was highly effective (0.996). Sixteen identical accession groups with the same allele profile were discovered in both collections. This study demonstrated that SSR fingerprinting with the three primer pairs tested, can be used for preliminary characterization of sweet cherry germplasm collections.