Genetic relationships in a germplasm collection of Camellia japonica and Camellia oleifera using SSR analysis.

Camellia japonica produces different color and bigger flowers, widely being used for gardening green in southern China. However, cultivars were introduced from different regions, but their origin and pedigree information is either not available poorly documented, causing problems in authentication. Many low-yield trees in Camellia oleifera forests have been used as stocks for grafting C. japonica. However, the survival rate of grafts between these two species is related to genetic relationship between stock of C. oleifera and scion of C. japonica. We used simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to genotype 41 C. japonica cultivars from different regions, as well as nine genotypes of C. oleifera in China. Twenty-one SSR markers generated 438 alleles, with an average of 20.85 alleles per locus. All alleles were used to generate Dice coefficients between two genotypes of all genotypes of these two species. Cluster analysis based on SSR data clustered genotypes showed clustering of genotypes into groups that agreed well with their taxonomic classification and geographic origin. Cultivar 'Damaonao' was a large tree with flowers of composite color, and showed the most genetic distance from other C. japonica cultivars and C. oleifera genotypes in the cluster analysis. The cultivars of C. japonica are distinct from genotypes of C. oleifera. The results for cultivars of C. japonica also revealed the presence of different cultivars with the same name, and identical cultivars but with a different name. SSR profiles can improve C. japonica germplasm management, and provide potential determine correlations between genetic relationship and graft compatibility among scions of C. japonica and genotypes of C. oleifera.

Characterization and identification of ISSR markers associated with oil content in sea buckthorn berries.

Bioactive oils extracted from sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) berries contain highly nutritional and medicinal compounds; however, the oil contents of sea buckthorn berries are very low. Thirteen inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers were used to identify markers associated with oil content of dry pulp in 51 cultivars and lines, which clustered into three major groups based on 137 polymorphic markers. Dry pulp oil contents in 45 cultivars and lines in Group I ranged from 6.6 to 33.1%; these accessions belonged to H. rhamnoides ssp mongolica and its hybrids with H. rhamnoides ssp sinensis. Three lines (H. rhamnoides ssp mongolica) in Group II had high dry pulp oil contents (33.7 to 37.5%), whereas three lines of hybrids in Group III had low dry pulp oil contents (10.9 to 17.5%). The dry pulp oil content of H. rhamnoides ssp mongolica (27.2 ± 0.9%) was higher than that of hybrids (12.0 ± 1.2%) (P < 0.01). Four ISSR markers (881340, 8251000, 817380, and 8071100) had positive association with high dry pulp oil content (P < 0.01) using stepwise multiple regression analysis. The use of these ISSR markers is a potential strategy to select genotypes with high dry pulp oil content and suitable parental combinations for improvement of sea buckthorn berries.