MICROSATELLITE MARKERS (SRR) AS A TOOL TO ASSIST IN IDENTIFICATION OF EUROPEAN PLUM (PRUNUS DOMESTICA)

The aim of this study was, parallel to the usual morphological identification of cultivars, to fingerprint a subset of 45 European plum cultivars with 7 SSR primers, to determine if there was sufficient polymorphism to differentiate the cultivars. And furthermore, to establish one routine method for cultivar identification for European plums at the KOB, and then use this new method as a technique to differentiate two unknown samples, as well as examine the authenticity and purity of cultivars for the nursery industry. The 7 SSR markers generated a total of 140 alleles in the European plum. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 31 for EMPaS01 to 10 for EMPaS02 with an average of 20 alleles per locus. The polymorphism information content (PIC) for the 7 SSR loci varied from 0.857 to 0.94 with an average of 0.898. Based on the PIC values, primer pair EMPaS01 was the most informative while EMPaS02 was the least informative.