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Molecular markers for kernel bitterness in almond

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Abstract

Upon crushing, amygdalin present in bitter almonds is hydrolysed to benzaldehyde, which gives a bitter flavour, and to cyanide, which is toxic. Bitterness is attributable to the recessive allele of the Sweet kernel (Sk/sk) gene and is selected against in breeding programmes. Almond has a long intergeneration period due to its long juvenile phase, so breeders must wait 3 or 4 years to evaluate fruit traits in the field. For this reason, it is important to develop molecular markers to distinguish between sweet and bitter genotypes. The Sk gene is known to map to linkage group five (G5) of the almond genome, but its function is still undefined. Candidate genes involved in the amygdalin pathway have been mapped, but none of them were located to G5. We have saturated G5 with additional Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs) using the progeny from the cross “R1000” × “Desmayo Largueta” and found six SSRs (UDA-045, EPDCU2584, CPDCT028, BPPCT037, PceGA025, and CPDCT016) closely linked to the Sk locus. The genotypes of four of these SSRs flanking the Sk locus, in a number of parents and a few seedlings of the CEBAS-CSIC almond breeding programme, allowed us to estimate the haplotypes of the parents, identifying the marker alleles adequate for an early and highly efficient selection against bitter genotypes. This analysis has established the usefulness of SSRs for screening populations of fruit trees such as almond by an easy, polymerase chain reaction-based method.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financed by a project of the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. We wish to thank F. Rook, A. Takos, V. Fuller, R. Lopez, and C. Martin for help in writing the manuscript and T. Cremades and M. Gambín for technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Mejora Vegetal, CEBAS-CSIC, Apdo. 164, 30100, Espinardo, Murcia, Spain

    Raquel Sánchez-Pérez, Pedro Martínez-Gómez & Federico Dicenta

  2. IRTA, Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica CSIC-IRTA-UAB, Ctra. Cabrils Km 2, 08348, Cabrils, Barcelona, Spain

    Werner Howad, Jordi Garcia-Mas & Pere Arús

Authors
  1. Raquel Sánchez-Pérez
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  2. Werner Howad
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  3. Jordi Garcia-Mas
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  4. Pere Arús
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  5. Pedro Martínez-Gómez
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  6. Federico Dicenta
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raquel Sánchez-Pérez.

Additional information

Communicated by E. Dirlewanger

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Table A

Pedigree and genotypes of the bitterness (Sk/sk) gene and four tightly linked SSRs of almond cultivars (from “Del Cid” to “Tardy Nonpareil”) and progeny (seedlings with a capital letter followed by a number) from the CEBAS-CSIC almond breeding programme. Markers and the Sk/sk gene are ordered according to their map position. The marker allele linked to the sk allele is in bold (PDF 58 kb)

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Sánchez-Pérez, R., Howad, W., Garcia-Mas, J. et al. Molecular markers for kernel bitterness in almond. Tree Genetics & Genomes 6, 237–245 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-009-0244-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-009-0244-7

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