• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.737-750
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• 2015

This study was carried out to construct a DNA profile database for 102 watermelon cultivars through the comparison of polymorphism level and genetic relatedness using genomic microsatellite (gMS) and expressed sequence tag (EST)-microsatellite (eMS) markers. Sixteen gMS and 10 eMS primers showed hyper-variability and were able to represent the genetic variation within 102 watermelon cultivars. With gMS markers, an average of 3.63 alleles per marker were detected with a polymorphism information content (PIC) value of 0.479, whereas with eMS markers, the average number of alleles per marker was 2.50 and the PIC value was 0.425, indicating that eMS detects a lower polymorphism level compared to gMS. Cluster analysis and Jaccard's genetic distance coefficients using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) based on the gMS, eMS, and combined data sets showed that 102 commercial watermelon cultivars could be categorized into 6 to 8 major groups corresponding to phenotypic traits. Moreover, this method was sufficient to identify 78 out of 102 cultivars. Correlation analysis with Mantel tests for those clusters using 3 data sets showed high correlation ($r{\geq}0.80$). Therefore, the microsatellite markers used in this study may serve as a useful tool for germplasm evaluation, genetic purity assessment, and fingerprinting of watermelon cultivars.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.525-534
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• 2014

Microsatellite markers were used to identify 58 major commercial melon cultivars, and to assess hybrid seed purity of a melon breeding line known as '10H08'. A set of 412 microsatellite primer pairs were utilized for fingerprinting of the melon cultivars. Twenty-nine markers showed hyper-variability and could discriminate all cultivars on the basis of marker genotypes, representing the genetic variation within varietal groups. Cluster analysis based on Jaccard's distance coefficients using the UPGMA algorithm categorized 2 major groups, which were in accordance to morphological traits. The DNA bulks of female and male parents of breeding line '10H08' were tested with 29 primer pairs based on microsatellites to investigate purity testing of $F_1$ hybrid seeds, and 5 primer pairs exhibited polymorphism. One microsatellite primer pair (CMGAN12) produced unambiguous polymorphic bands among the parents. Among 192 seeds tested with CMGAN12, progeny possibly generated by self-pollination of the female parent were clearly distinguished from the hybrid progeny. These markers will be useful for fingerprinting melon cultivars and can help private seed companies to improve melon seed purity.