Characterization of the Genetic Diversity of Peach Cultivars in Taif by RAPD-PCR

Problem statement: Peach genotypes from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were not adequately characterized at the biological and molecular levels. This study was carried out to characterize nine peach cultivars growing in Taif (KSA) at the biological and molecular levels. Approach: For the nine peach cultivars studied, flowering and fruiting indices were determined and eight, 10-base primers were used to amplify DNA from each cultivar by using Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technology. RAPD profiles (i.e., cultivars) and RAPD amplicons (i.e., markers) were biclustered by using appropriate software and the RAPD biclusters were viewed as a heatmap in order to improve the display of RAPD markers. Results: The different RAPD primers produced a total of 114 fragments (amplicons), of which 63 were polymorphic among the studied cultivars. The RAPD fingerprinting results confirmed the data obtained from the morphological analyses and allowed for estimating the genetic relatedness among the studied peach cultivars. Moreover, the data indicated that certain molecular markers might be associated with certain commercial characteristics. Conclusion/Recommendations: Future studies on the association(s) of the selected molecular markers with fruiting characteristics should allow for new gene discovery, molecular breeding, proper biodiversity assessment and better conservation of germplasm resources.