Genetic variation and identification of promising sour cherries inferred from microsatellite markers

The aim of this study was to identify the group of highly polymorphic microsatellite markers for identification of promising sour cherries. From among 30 tested microsatellite (SSR) markers, 19 were selected to profile genetic variation in sour cherries due to high polymorphisms. Results indicated a high level of polymorphism of the accessions based on these markers. Totally 148 alleles were generated at 19 SSR loci which 122 alleles were polymorphic. The number of total alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 15 with an average of 7.78 and polymorphism percentage varied from 50 to 100% with an average of 78.76%. Also, PIC varied from 0.47 to 0.89 with an average of 0.79 and heterozygosity ranged from 0.35 to 0.55 with a mean of 0.45. According to these results, these markers specially PMS3, PS12A02, PceGA34, BPPCT021, EMPA004, EMPA018, and Pchgms3 produced good and various levels of amplifications and showed high heterozygosity levels. By the way, the genetic similarity showed a high diversity among the sour cherries. Cluster analysis separated improved cultivars from promising sour cherries, and the PCoA supported the cluster analysis results. Since the studied sour cherries were superior to the improved cultivars and were separated from them in most groups, these sour cherries can be considered as distinct genotypes for further evaluations in the framework of breeding programs and new cultivar identification in cherries. Results also confirmed that the set of microsatellite markers employed in this study demonstrated usefulness of microsatellite markers for the identification of sour cherry genotypes.