Acerola (Malpighia emarginata) is a tropical fruit native from Central America and north of South America. It has shown an increasing economic and social importance due to its high vitamin C (ascorbic acid) content. Vegetative propagation is the preferable method used to establish acerola plantations. However, propagation by seeds has also been used allowing the identification and selection of genotypes that carry characteristics of agronomic interest. Twenty-four acerola accesses, of the Active Germplasm Bank of the Universidade Estadual de Londrina, were analyzed using molecular markers obtained with random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and simple sequence repeated (SSRs) primers. A total of 164 and 73 markers were obtained with RAPD and SSR primers, respectively. Polymorfic markers were scored as present or absent and analyzed using the UPGMA cluster analysis. The results presented reveal high levels of polymorphism in the studied collection. Comparative analysis of the phenograms, generated with both RAPD and SSR primers, revealed that while some accesses clustered in different groups other accesses presented the same association. However, there was large RAPD variation among the accesses. The associations observed with molecular markers were, for many accesses, the same of those determined on the basis of morphological characters.
Acerola; Malpighia emarginata; RAPD and SSR markers; genetic variability
