MOLECULAR MARKER FOR SELECTING POLLINATION-CONSTANT NON-ASTRINGENT (PCNA) TYPE PERSIMMON AT THE JUVENILE STAGE

Persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) is classified into four types depending on the nature of astringency-loss and the change in the flesh color. Among them, the pollination constant and non-astringent (PCNA) type is the most desirable for fruit consumption. Since natural astringency loss in PCNA type persimmon is qualitatively inherited and recessive to the non-PCNA trait, an investigation to find dominant markers for the trait was carried out for efficient selection of PCNA type plants in breeding populations. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique was applied for this purpose using bulked segregant analysis (BSA). A total of 128 primer combinations were tested and one AFLP marker was found to be linked to the dominant allele controlling the trait for astringency. This marker, EACC/MCTA- 400, was absent in all of the PCNA-type plants tested, but present in about half of the non-PCNA type plants tested. Furthermore, RFLP analysis using this marker as a probe enabled the detection of the other dominant allele, and all PCNA-type plants could be distinguished from non-PCNA type plants. The effectiveness of this RFLP markers was confirmed by the same analysis to different breeding progenies and to existing cultivars. Currently, we are trying to establish an effective system for the selection of PCNA plants from breeding populations by applying this RFLP analysis.

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