Two EST-derived marker systems for cultivar identification in tree peony

Area of Science:

• Plant genetics and breeding
• Molecular biology
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa Andrews) is a valuable woody ornamental plant.
• Efficient breeding strategies are crucial for crop improvement.
• Expressed sequence tag (EST) databases provide valuable genetic resources.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate two novel EST-derived molecular marker systems for tree peony.
• To assess the suitability of these markers for DNA fingerprinting and cultivar discrimination.
• To facilitate future genetic studies and breeding programs in tree peony.

Main Methods:

• Development of Target Region Amplification Polymorphism (TRAP) markers from ESTs.
• Development of EST-derived Simple Sequence Repeat (EST-SSR) markers.
• Analysis of polymorphism and allele diversity in 56 tree peony accessions.
• Comparison of similarity matrices generated by TRAP and EST-SSR markers using Mantel test.

Main Results:

• TRAP markers exhibited high polymorphism (99.3%) across 56 accessions.
• EST-SSR markers identified a total of 33 alleles in the same accessions.
• A moderate correlation (r=0.57778, P=0.0020) was observed between TRAP and EST-SSR marker data.
• TRAP markers proved effective for DNA fingerprinting, while EST-SSR markers were better for discriminating synonyms.

Conclusions:

• EST-derived TRAP and EST-SSR markers are valuable tools for tree peony genetic research.
• These markers can enhance the efficiency of tree peony breeding programs.
• Future applications include genetic linkage map construction and quantitative trait locus detection.