SYNTENY WITHIN THE PRUNUS GENOMES DETECTED BY MOLECULAR MARKERS

The same Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) and microsatellite markers made it possible to construct and saturate genomic maps for several Prunus species.
Here, we compare the maps build from peach, sweet cherry and almond intraspecific populations and maps build from almond x peach, myrobalan plum x (almond x peach) and peach x Prunus ferganensis interspecific populations.
As the order of the markers was highly conserved, it was possible to deduce the approximate position of RFLP and microsatellite markers that were not previously use for the construction of the reference European Prunus map, almond ‘Texas’ x peach ‘Earlygold’. Based on the anchor loci, the locations of 31 genes from four species (peach, almond, cherry and myrobalan plum) were established on the framework of a single Prunus map.
In addition, among the RFLP and microsatellite markers, several have sequences homologous to genes with known function.
The homology between Prunus species should then allow a rapid transfer of the results obtained in one species to the others, especially for genes controlling agronomical characters.