Evaluation of genetic relationships between almond (Prunus dulcis L.) cultivars and genotypes using SSR markers

Using microsatellite molecular markers is important particularly due to their high accuracy in studying the genome of the fruit trees. In this study، genetic diversity and relations of 68 almond cultivars and genotypes using microsatellite marker (SSR) were studied. Genomic DNA extracted from young leaf tissues and PCR reactions were performed using 22 selected primers (among 100 primers) of microsatellites. In total 167 polymorphic alleles، between 4 to 11 alleles with an average of 7. 60 alleles were obtained for each location. Pchgms 6 and UDP97401 loci had better performance and more advantages than other used loci regarding more number of alleles، high effective allele، resolution power، the amount of polymorphism information، expected heterozygosity and high “Shannon” information index. Based on the similarity matrix، maximum similarity (0. 74) was observed between ‘5-17’ and ‘1-21’ genotypes and the lowest similarity (0. 14) was observed between ‘2-7’ and ‘Mashhad-3’ genotypes. Cluster analysis based on Dice''s similarity coefficients and UPGMA method were divided cultivars and genotypes into 8 groups at 0. 44 similarity distance. According to the results of cluster analysis، cultivars and genotypes were well separated that were in accordance with their geographical origin and some morphological characteristics.