ARS | Publication request: DINUCLEOTIDE MICROSATELLITES OF THE EUROPEAN HAZELNUT

Submitted to: International Congress on Hazelnut Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: March 20, 2004
Publication Date: June 14, 2004
Citation: Bassil, N.V., Botta, R., Mehlenbacher, S.A. 2004. Dinucleotide microsatellites of the european hazelnut [abstract]. International Congress on Hazelnut Proceedings, June 14-18, 2004, Tarragona, Spain. pg. 20.

Interpretive Summary: The objective of this study was to develop additional molecular tools that will be used for fingerprinting different types of European hazelnuts and for identifying suspected duplicate trees. Tiny repeated pieces of DNA called microsatellites represent one of these molecular tools. The number of the repeated units changes greatly between different types of hazelnuts. Thirteen DNA fragments that contain microsatellites were identified and appear different among twenty types of European hazelnuts. The reliability of these microsatellites in hazelnut fingerprinting and identification will be evaluated further.

Technical Abstract: The objective of this study was to develop a maximum number of markers from three microsatellite-enriched genomic libraries of the European hazelnut, Corylus avellana L. Thirteen additional dinucleotide-containing loci were detected. Five contained the CA motif and were isolated from CA-enriched library A while eight contained the GA motif most of which were obtained from the GA-enriched library B. One GA-containing microsatellite locus, CAC-C119 was isolated from the GAA-enriched library C. Optimum annealing temperature for each primer pair designed using Primer3 was determined by gradient PCR. Amplification and polymorphism of these 13 primer pairs in 20 cultivars of C. avellana were initially determined by electrophoresis using 3% agarose gels. Forward primers were fluorescently labeled and will be used to identify the microsatellite alleles by capillary electrophoresis. The ability of these microsatellite markers to reliably distinguish between cultivars of the European hazelnut irrespective of geographical origin will be assessed. We plan on using microsatellite markers to identify suspected duplicate accessions and to fingerprint the core hazelnut genotypes.