Genetic relationships from Kiwifruit germplasms based on EST-SSR markers

Abstract：Eleven pairs of EST-SSR markers developed and designed by our lab were used to amplify the genomic DNA isolated from 33 kiwifruit genotypes （A ctinidia spp.） in order to analyze their genetic diver- sity and relationship. The results showed that the clear DNA fragments were amplified for all materials tested by using 11 pairs of EST-SSR primers, and 8 of them showed polymorphic, accounting for 72.7%, the identification rates of 33 germplasms were up to 100%. Totally, 61 alleles were detected by 8 polymor- phic pairs of EST-SSR primers, and 2 to 17 （mean 7.6） by each polymorphic primer set. Then Cluster analysis results by NTSYS-pc software based on Unweighted pair-group method arithmetic average （UPG- MA） showed that the Dice similarity coefficients of 33 germplasms in kiwifruit ranged from 0.60 to 0.97, which suggested that their genetic relationships were relatively near. Thirty three accessions could be di- vided into seven groups according to the Dice similarity coefficient 0.73, which was consistent with the tra- ditional classification to a certain degree. The research could reflect the kiwifruit genetic variation on molecular level by EST-SSR markers and provide theoretical basis for kiwifruit breeding. It is suggested that EST-SSR markers are very effective to evaluate DNA polymorphism and genetic diversity in kiwifruit germplasms, and will provide theoretical information for molecular breeding and genetic mapping in kiwifruit.