MOLECULAR MARKERS AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY IN STRAWBERRY DIVERSITY ANALYSIS

Strawberries contain high levels of vitamin C, cellulose and pectin, and produce anthocyanins which have important therapeutic values, including antitumor, antiulcer, antioxidant and antiinflammatory activities.
There is a pressing need to develop reliable methods for identifying strawberry germplasm and for assessing genetic diversity/relatedness in berry genotypes for practical breeding purposes and proprietary-rights protection.
The introduction of molecular biology techniques, such as DNA-based markers, allows direct comparison of different genetic material independent of environmental influences.
This review presents the progress in-depth of various aspects of molecular diversity analyses in strawberries.
Significant progress has been made in diversity analysis in strawberry cultivars and advanced lines developed in Canada.
Inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers detected a sufficient degree of polymorphism to differentiate among strawberry genotypes, making this technology valuable for cultivar identification and for the more efficient choice of parents in the current breeding programs.
The paper also discusses the issues that still need to be addressed to utilize the full potential of molecular techniques including expressed sequence tag-polymerase chain reaction (EST-PCR) analysis to develop improved strawberries environmental friendly cultivars suited to the changing needs of growers and consumers.

VII International Strawberry Symposium

S.C. Debnath

antioxidants, molecular markers, genetic relatedness

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2014.1049.41