Application of AFLP markers in genetic structure study of promising hybrids in Prunus genus

The Prunus genus belongs to the Rosaceae family comprises important species distributed in the northern hemisphere like Iran. In recently novel and industrial pomology, using interspesific hybrids as rootstocks in Prunus genus was attended for useful rootstock obtaining. Rootstocks characterization and selection possibility were prepared with molecular markers improvement. The aim of this study was evaluation of genetic diversity, structure and genetic relations of Prunus rootstocks using fluorescent-AFLP markers. Therefore we studied genetic diversity of 89 genotypes of the Prunus genus, including plum× almond, prune × almond, peach × almond, prune × apricot, plum × apricot hybrids, almond, apricot, peach, prune and plum genotype and other diverse interspecific hybrids. Eight primer combinations showed 728 polymorphic bands with clearly band pattern between 20 candidate primer combinations. Using gCLUTO v. 1.0, SplitsTree4, Structure and R 2.14.1 softwares most (peach × almond) hybrids segregated from the other hybrids that have plum or prune as a parent and parental genotypes separated in the different species. Also Licor system and labeled AFLP markers showed effective results in comparison with encient AFLP, method in this research. Therefore this study can identify promising hybrids based on the parents and can be used to make molecular certificate to register them.