Genetical diversity of cherimoya cultivars revealed by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) analysis

Abstract

Genetic diversity of 19 cherimoya cultivars classified into five types based on their skin texture was taxonomically identified by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP). AFLP analysis revealed 33 reproducible amplified bands with an average number ranging from 10 to 47 bands per primer combination. The size of the amplified bands ranged from 50 to 450 bp in all the primer combinations. More than 30% (88/264) of the bands were polymorphic among the cultivars. The most efficient combination (E-AGT/M-8) yielded 21 polymorphic bands. A total of 264 AFLP bands enabled to detect the genetic variation among cherimoya cultivars. The consensus of eight trees with the highest degree of parsimony reflected known relationships of some cultivars. Cladogram constructed by AFLP revealed that all the 19 cultivars could be clearly differentiated. The similarity indexes were estimated for cherimoya, and the values ranged from 033 to 0.95. The minimum value was observed between 'Fino De Jete' and 'Ott' or 'Sallmon' and the maximum was detected between 'Bays' and 'Bay Ott'. Although these results were not consistent with morphological classifications, AFLP provided a better resolution in revealing the phylogeny of the cherimoya cultivars. It is concluded that AFLP enables to analyse the phylogenetic relationships of cherimoya cultivars.