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Title: GENETIC DIVERSITY OF LITCHI GERMPLASM ASSESSED BY AFLP MARKER

Author
item JONES, MEGHAN - HARC
item Zee, Francis
item Moore, Paul
item KIM, MINA - HARC
item MING, RAY - UNIV. ILLINOIS

Submitted to: Plant Animal and Microbe Genomes Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/5/2005
Publication Date: 1/20/2006
Citation: Jones, M., Zee, F.T., Moore, P.H., Kim, M.S., Ming, R. 2006. Genetic diversity of litchi germplasm assessed by AFLP marker. Plant Animal and Microbe Genomes Conference XIV. P489, Pg. 223.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: A native evergreen tree of China, lychee (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) is an important commercial fruit throughout China, India, and Southeast Asia. Translation of cultivar names from Cantonese and Mandarin to English has resulted in confusion over the naming of the cultivars; frequently, many cultivar names are synonymous causing more difficulty. Movement away from phenotypic classification towards molecular characterization of lychee has occurred in order to more accurately evaluate genetic relationships. The amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) have been used for assessing genetic diversity among 83 lychee accessions collected at the USDA germplasm repository in Hilo, Hawaii, including cultivars from Florida, Hawaii, Thailand, and three areas of China. Markers were identified with the goal of clarifying genetic relationships of the lychee accessions by comparing results with a known pedigree. A total of 337 AFLP markers, with an additional 64 monomorphic markers, were used to identify genetic similarity based on the Dice similarity coefficient. We found substantial diversity among the lychee accessions with no identical samples found. The average genetic similarity among samples was 0.55, ranging from 0.05 to 0.94. The Kaimana accession differed from its sister line with genetic similarity of 0.52, which suggests a high level of genome heterozygosity within their parental varieties. The relationship between different cloning techniques, grafting and air-layering, of the same cultivar was also studied.