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

Verona, Italy - 24/27 September, 2003

ISBN 88-900622-4-X

Poster Abstract - 2.26

CHARACTERIZATION OF ITALIAN CULTIVARS OF HAZELNUT AND PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS USING RAPDS MARKERS

R. DI BONITO, L. BACCHETTA, G. DI STEFANO, C. BERNARDINI, O. PELLICCIA, G. CAVICCHIONI

ENEA, Biotec-Gen, via Anguillarese 301, 00100 Roma

Hazelnut, RAPDs, intraspecific variability, biodiversity

In this work a molecular analysis of genotypes of hazelnut (Corylus avellana) has been conducted in order to obtain a fingerprinting for the Italian typical cultivars. The results have been compared to the analysis of the nut morphological traits. We have evaluated a collection of 24 genotypes including the main cultivars from the Italian regions of cultivation (Piemonte, Lazio, Campania, and Sicilia) as well as cultivars from Spain, Great Britain, France and Turkey. DNA has been extracted by the method of Doyle & Doyle (1990) and the analysis conducted by the method of Random Amplified Polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs) using arbitrarily chosen oligonucleotide primers. A preliminary analysis of 80 Operon primers has shown 30 primers producing polymorphic and consistent bands on a limited number of samples. Eleven primers have been selected for the analysis of all the genotypes. The results have been used to produce a similarity matrix with the coefficient of Nei and Li (1979) and a phylogenetic analysis. A characteristic electrophoretic pattern has been obtained for each of the cultivars Tonda delle Langhe (Piemonte), Tonda Gentile Romana (Lazio), Tonda Rossa, Tonda Bianca, Tonda di Giffoni (Campania) and Napoletanedda (Sicilia). The phylogenetic analysis with the UPGMA method has shown the presence of a cluster grouping the cultivars Tonda Gentile Romana, Tonda Rossa, Tonda Giffoni, Tonda delle Langhe. The cultivar Nocchione from Lazio resulted related to some genotypes from Sicily and Campania and Tonda Bianca resulted in a distinct cluster, with cultivars from Great Britain. The morphological analysis has shown a significant variability in the nut characters. The Cv Mansa from Sicily has shown the higher values of nut and seed weight, while valuable characters for nut processing (pellicle removal) were observed in Napuletanedda, Camponica, Tonda delle Langhe, Riccia di Talanico, Tonda Rossa. The evaluation of the nut shape index has shown a spherical form for all the cultivars except Mortarella, S. Giovanni, Mansa, Riccia di Talanico exhibiting long fruits similar to Sivri from Turkey.

Doyle & Doyle 1990. Focus 12:13-15

Nei and Li 1979. PNAS 76:5269-5273