Molecular Identification of Commercial Apple Cultivars with Microsatellite Markers

Abstract

A collection of 66 commercial apple (Malus ×domestica Borkh.) cultivars was screened with six previously described SSR (Simple Sequence Repeat) markers for molecular identification. In total, 55 polymorphic alleles were detected at the 6 SSR loci (average 9.2 alleles per locus) and the polymorphism information content (PIC) averaged 0.72. Successful differentiation of all apple genotypes except for somatic mutants was accomplished by using only four (CH03g07, CH04e03, CH05d11, and CH05e03) SSR markers. Sport mutants proved to be indistinguishable from each other and their progenitors. The cumulative probability of obtaining an identical SSR profile for two randomly chosen apple genotypes was 1.79 × 10–4, which confirms the high potential of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) for cultivar identification.