Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Fargo, North Dakota » Edward T. Schafer Agricultural Research Center » Sunflower and Plant Biology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #225230

Title: Assessment of genetic diversity among elderberry (Sambucus sp.) species, cultivars, and wild selections by TRAP technique

Author
item JOHNSON, HWEI-YIING - LINCOLN UNIVERSITY
item THOMAS, ANDREW - UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
item BYERS, PATRICK - MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY
item TESFAYE, SAMSON - LINCOLN UNIVERSITY
item Hu, Jinguo

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/28/2008
Publication Date: 6/15/2008
Citation: Johnson, H.-Y., Byers, P., Hu, J., Thomas, A., Tesfaye, S. 2008. Assessment of Genetic Diversity Among Elderberry (Sambucus sp.) Species, Cultivars, and Wild Selections by TRAP Technique [abstract]. HortScience. 43(4):1137-1138.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis L.) is a large shrub native to much of North America that produces edible flowersand fruit. A large collection with predominant cultivar and selectionsof S. Canadensis and several cultivar and selections of S. nigra L. and S. pubens Michx has been collected for evaluation for commercial wine and nutraceutical production. The genetic relationship of wild and cultivated elderberry plants, both within and among species, is largelyunknown. In this project, a PCR-based target region amplificationpolymorphism (TRAP) genotyping technique was utilized to assess the genetic diversity and relationship of 66 elderberry accessions across three species. DNA samples were prepared from young leaf tissue for TRAP amplification. In each PCR reaction, one fixed primer was combined withfour arbitrary primers labeled with fluorescent dyes. Two fixed primers used for two PCR reactions in this study were designed against the conserved (Arabidopsis thaliana L.) telomere-repeat sequence and a sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) expressed sequence tag (EST). The TRAPamplification results in more than one thousand polymorphic markersuseful for cluster analysis aided by the NTSYSpc software (version 2.2). TRAP markers clearly distinguished the three elderberry species, with S. pubens sharing only 23% genetic similarity with the other two species. These markers also generally differentiated cultivars and selections from the southeastern Canada / northeastern USA region compared with selections from the midwestern USA, with some exceptions. Wild plants from Missouri and Arkansas shared high genetic similarities ranging from 50 to 65%. In addition, results showed a lack of genetic distinction among wild elderberries collected from within four Missouri ecoregions.This low spatial genetic variation within Missouri native elderberries suggested their potential adaptability to all regions within the State.