Genetic analysis of selected almond genotypes and cultivars grown in Turkey using peroxidase-gene-based markers

Peroxidase plays important roles in many stress-related interactions and catalyzes important reactions in various physiological processes. Since peroxidase played critical roles in the evolution of almond (Prunus dulcis Miller (D.A Webb) syn P. amygdalus Batsch), peroxidase-gene-based analyses may increase the understanding of evolution of this species. Peroxidase gene polymorphism (POGP) markers were used to determine genetic diversity and relationships among 69 Turkish genotypes/cultivars and 27 foreign almond cultivars by using unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) analysis. This study is the first evaluation of the use of POGP markers for diversity analysis in almond. Totally, 83 fragments were obtained from eight peroxidase primer pairs, and polymorphism was identified as 94 %. Similarity level among the genotypes ranged between 0.63 and 0.93, and all materials were distinguished. In general, Turkish and foreign genotypes were mixed in clusters since they share a common genetic background and gene migration among the sites. Clusters were not based on geographic regions except for some minor groupings. This study indicated that peroxidase gene markers can be reliably used to determine genetic relationships in almonds.