Sweet Cherry Cultivar Identification by Using SSR Markers

In this study, sweet cherry varieties and types grown in Turkey were described using SSR markers. This study was undertaken to develop DNA marker profiles that could be used to distinguish among the sweet cherry cultivars used in production in Turkey. For microsatellite analysis, 13 SSR primers isolated from sweet cherry (P. avium L.) sour cherry (P. cerasus L.) and peach (P. persica L. Batsch) were used on sweet cherry cultivars and types. Two primer pairs did not give amplification with genotypes analyzed. Two-primer pairs amplified monomorphic fragment for the sweet cherry varieties therefore they were uninformative for the sweet cherry genetic analysis. Genetic similarities were calculated and a dendrogram has been established. All of the 8 SSR primers used and cherries have produced amplified bands. For each primer the alleles obtained has been between 1 and 6, in total 38 alleles have found. Through these analyses the similarities between these varieties have been converted into numerical values. This happens to be the first study kind towards the molecular identification of sweet cherry genetic resources in Turkey.