Forty-seven Japanese plum (Prunus salicina) cultivars were genotyped with eight microsatellite markers, aiming at obtaining the DNA fingerprinting profiling, distinguishing and characterizing a representative set of Japanese plum cultivars. The eight SSR loci amplified 104 alleles (8 to 21 alleles per locus, mean 13). Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) ranged from 0.680 to 0.886 (mean 0.803). The observed heterozigozity (Ho) ranged from 0.529 to 0.915 (mean 0.770). Probability of Identity (I) of each locus ranged from 0.019 to 0.113 (mean 0.054). The combined Probability of Identity was 2.66 x 1011, and the Power of Exclusion of the eight loci was 99.99976%. 57 out of 104 alleles showed frequency lower than 0.05. These low allele frequencies contributed to raise the distinguish ability of plum cultivars. These results will contribute, as excellent descriptors, to select parental for crossings, to perform early identification of segregating clones with potential to be cultivars, and to protect the cultivars.
Cultivar protection; cultivar identification; genetic similarity/relationship; SSR markers
