Molecular Characterization in Fruit Crops - A Review

Proper identification and characterization of the accessions is highly required for the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. Various molecular techniques such as Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP), Sequence-Related Amplified Polymorphism (SRAP), Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR), Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) have recently been used for fruit plant characterization. The publication of Botstein et al. in 1980 about the construction of genetic maps using RFLP was the first reported molecular marker technique in the detection of DNA polymorphism. Genome sequencing projects for several fruit crops such as grapevine, apple, peach, strawberry, and citrus, revealed good results in molecular characterization. RAPD, RFLP, AFLP and SSR or microsatellite markers have been used to identify citrus species with high accuracy. SSR markers have been used successfully for the genetic diversity studies among Mangifera indica L. accessions and related Mangifera species originating from 12 diverse geographic areas. Many studies on RFLP, RAPD, AFLP and SSR in apple have been published. True hybrids identification among F1 progenies using RAPD and ISSR markers has been reported in Zyzipus mauritiana. Genetic divergence and similarity among diverse pear, peach and grape genotypes have been reported by using SSR markers. The first report of using SRAP marker as a tool for determining genetic variation among and within Prunus mahaleb and Prunus avium was recently published in 2013. Genetic diversity and relationships in loquat and pomegranate varieties were studied by using SSR markers.