Proceedings of the XLVI Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Giardini Naxos, Italy - 18/21 September, 2002

ISBN 88-900622-3-1

Poster Abstract - 1.13

MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF CALABRIAN CULTIVARS AND WILD PLANTS OF OLEA EUROPAEA L.

COZZA R., PELLEGRINO G., BRUNO L., MUSACCHIO A., BITONTI M.B.

Università degli Studi della Calabria, Dipartimento di Ecologia, 87030 Arcavacata di Rende (CS)

Olea europaea, RFLP, microsatellite markers

Olive-tree (Olea europaea L.) is one of the most characteristic species of the Mediterranean area where it is present with cultivated forms (Olea europaea L. var. sativa Lehr) and numerous wild plants generally referred as oleaster (O. europaea L. subsp. sylvestris (Miller) Hegi). Oleaster is not necessarily of wild origin but it may originate as the progeny of crosses between cultivated olive and individuals of subsp. sylvestris which are fully inter-fertile. As a consequence, the genera Olea exbiths a great genotypic variability and several genetic study have already been used to clarify its systematic (1,2,3).

In this work we analysed some O. europaea cultivars extensively represented in Calabria region, and some wild/feral forms (O. europaea var. sylvestris collected in Calabria and three oleaster sampled in Sardinia), by using RFLP and SSRs methods.

Concerning RFLP analyses, the genomic DNA, digested with different restriction enzymes, was probed with a tandem repeat DNA sequences (OeTaq80). Differences in the organization of OeTaq80 repeated DNA in O. europaea samples were detected. Work is in progress in order to localize this repetitive sequence at nuclear/chromosome level through in situ-hybridization.

As for SSRs approach, all nuclear microsatellites used were polymorphic. Intra-cultivar inter-cultivar differences in allelic frequencies were found, moreover there were alleles that seemed to be specific of one or few cultivars. The index fixation showed that the percentage of homozygous loci was rather high. A phenogram based on Nei’s genetic distances was constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA).

The obtained results are discussed with the hypothesis of the phylogenetic relationships between the Olea species considered.

References

1) Claros et al., Euphytica 116:131-142, 2000

2) Hernàdez et al., TAG 103: 788-791, 2001

3) Cipriani et al., TAG 104: 223-228, 2002