Evaluation of genomic diversity of pistachio resistant and susceptible cultivars to pest psyllid using whole genome sequencing approach

Pistachio is one of the most important crops that have a large genetic diversity due to its dicotyledonous and high heterozygosity, so identifying these genetic differences is of particular importance for breeding and production of psyllid-resistant pistachio cultivars. Pistachio psyllid is one of the most important pests of the pistachio tree. The nymphs and adult insects of this pest increase the amount of porosity, and reduce yield and lack of laughter, by consuming plant sap. In this study, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) and small indels were investigated in Iranian pistachio sensitive cultivars (Akbari, Kalehghoochi, Ahmad Aghaei, Momtaz) and resistant cultivars (Badami Zarand, Haj Abdollahi, Italian, Sarakhs) to psyllids. The readings were first aligned with the reference genome, and then single-nucleotide polymorphisms and deletions, and small indels were identified by the GATK toolkit. The percentage of alignment of the readings with the reference genome was above 96%, which indicated the high quality of alignment. Sensitive cultivars had 2920688 and 701109 and resistant cultivars had 2919898 and 701000 SNP and small indels, respectively. In general, the results of data analysis showed that the structural and polymorphic diversity of mononucleotides and the small indels are greater in susceptible cultivars than in resistant cultivars.