Molecular characterisation of f rench olive cultivars using microsatellites: Towards the establishment of a reference genotype database

Abstract

To determine the best combination of SSR markers for genotype discrimination, 58 olive accessions were analysed by 12 SSR loci using the sequencer. Based on 54 alleles, 58 genotypes were characterised. A set of 8 SSR loci was selected as the most efficient combination with a very low probability to obtain a given genotype under random association (ranged between 1.16 10 -10 to 6.56 10-6). Only 17 molecular profile pairs among 1653 pairwise comparisons were distinguished by 1 to 6 alleles. Five cases of homonymy were detected for "Germaine", "Noirette" and "Rougette de Pignan". Further SSR loci should be added in order to validate genotype characterisation.