Map based estimation of the origin of Japanese flowering cherry culrivar, cerasiis xyedoensis 'somei-yoshino' fujino with an assignment for each chromosome

Abstract

Cerasiis xyedoensis 'Somei-yoshino' Fujino. one of the most popular flowering cherry cultivars in Japan, is considered a hybrid of Cerasiis spachiana and Cerasiis speciosa. In the present study, 27 microsatellite marker loci on the genetic linkage map of Somei-yoshino' were genotvped in the wild populations of C. spachiana and C. speciosa. Based on the allele frequencies in the wild population, two alleles of Somei-yoshino' were assigned to each of them Of the .>1 alleles analyzed. 44. 4 and 33.3% were assigned to C. spachiana and C. speciosa. respectively. The remaining 22.2% were unidentified because of their equal frequencies or rare observations in both species. In addition, some chromosomes consisted of two regions derived from C. spachiana and C. speciosa. respectively. These results suggested that some 'Somei-yoshino' chromosomes were formed by the crossing-over of hybnd ancestors. Thus, we concluded that 'Somei-yoshino' may not have originated from a simple hybrid such as a first filial generation, but from a more complicated crossing between C. spachiana and C. speciosa.