Molecular Characterization and Study of Genetic Relationships among local Cultivars of the Moroccan fig (Ficus carica L.) using Microsatellite and ISSR Markers

Molecular characterization of Moroccan local fig (Ficus carica L.) germplasm was performed on the cultivars present in a collection of the National School of Agriculture of Meknes. A total of 22 fig samples were analysed using 7 ISSR primers and 9 loci S.S.R. A total of 54 I.S.S.R. polymorphic bands with an average of 8 per primers and 42 S.S.R. alleles with means 5 alleles per locus were revealed by these analyses. The ISSR markers allowed distinguishing 22 molecular profiles and S.S.R. loci differentiated between 21 different profiles. Pairwise Comparing, 87% of cultivars pairs were differentiated by 7 to 24 alleles and 89% by 9 to 29 ISSR bands. The statistical analysis and genetic distances have shown a wide molecular diversity in the collection, where the average observed heterozygosity was 0.42. The average similarity between cultivars is 70% using SSR markers and 71.6 for ISSR markers. The same SSR profile was obtained for Nabout1 and Nabout2 with 0 allele difference. Small differences of 1 to 6 alleles were obtained among cultivars which have the same names, which presumably corresponds to somaclonal variations obtained through intense vegetative propagation over long periods, while the differences over 7 alleles suggests the problems of homonyms.