JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE & BIOTECHNOLOGY, vol.92, no.3, pp.251-260, 2017 (SCI-Expanded)
In this study, the sexual incompatibility and S-allele diversity of 24 Turkish apricot cultivars, Paviot and Sakt-1 as parents and 127 F-1 progenies were identified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequencing techniques. Additionally, genetic diversity and relatedness among the 24 cultivars were determined using 18 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers from the genus Prunus. PCR for S_alleles identified nine different S-RNase alleles in the 24 apricot cultivars, namely S-c, S-1, S-2, S-8, S-9, S-20, S-24, S-52, and S-53. All primers amplified only one S_allele in the cultivars Adilcevaz-1, Adilcevaz-3, Ethembey, Pasamismisi, Canakkale, and Soganci. Most of the Turkish cultivars were self-incompatible. The S-c allele was present in only three cultivars (Canakkale, Ethembey, Imrahor) that are, therefore, self-compatible. The S_alleles of cultivars Paviot and Sakt-1 displayed homology with the S-c, S-2 and S-20, and S-52 alleles. In the 127 F-1 genotypes, the two S_alleles of Paviot were inherited by roughly half of the offspring, while about 76% of the offspring inherited the S-52 allele from Sakt-1, and less than 24% inherited S-20. The amplification using all SSR 18 primers was successful and produced 128 polymorphic alleles with an average of 7.11 alleles per locus. Among the apricot cultivars studied, expected heterozygosity (He) ranged from 0.33 to 0.72, observed heterozygosity (Ho) ranged from 0.42 to 1.00, PIC values were between 0.28 and 0.89, and similarity rates were between 0.30 and 0.68. The cultivars Levent and Ozal were genetically closest (0.68) while cultivars Sakt-3 and Soganc were the most distinct (0.30).