Phenotypic, Genetic, and Epigenetic Variation among Diverse Sweet Cherry Gene Pools
Evangelia V. Avramidou,
Theodoros Moysiadis,
Ioannis Ganopoulos,
Michail Michailidis,
Christos Kissoudis,
Dimitrios Valasiadis,
Konstantinos Kazantzis,
Eirini Tsaroucha,
Athanasios Tsaftaris,
Athanassios Molassiotis,
Filippos A. Aravanopoulos,
Aliki Xanthopoulou
Affiliations
Evangelia V. Avramidou
Laboratory of Forest Genetics and Biotechnology, Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems, Athens, ELGO-DEMETER, Terma Alkmanos, Ilisia, 11528 Athens, Greece
Theodoros Moysiadis
Department of Computer Science, School of Sciences and Engineering, University of Nicosia, Nicosia 2417, Cyprus
Ioannis Ganopoulos
Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-DEMETER, Thermi, 570001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Michail Michailidis
Laboratory of Pomology, Department of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Christos Kissoudis
Perrotis College, American Farm School, GR-57001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Dimitrios Valasiadis
Laboratory of Pomology, Department of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Konstantinos Kazantzis
Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-DEMETER, Thermi, 570001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Eirini Tsaroucha
Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Department of Comparative Development and Genetics, Carl-von-Linné-Weg 10, 50829 Cologne, Germany
Athanasios Tsaftaris
Perrotis College, American Farm School, GR-57001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Athanassios Molassiotis
Laboratory of Pomology, Department of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Filippos A. Aravanopoulos
Laboratory of Forest Genetics & Tree Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry & Environmental Science, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Aliki Xanthopoulou
Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-DEMETER, Thermi, 570001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Sweet cherry germplasm contains a high variety of phenotypes which are associated with fruit size and shape as well as sugar content, etc. High phenotypic variation can be a result of genetic or epigenetic diversity that may interact through time. Recent studies have provided evidence that besides allelic variation, epiallelic variation can establish new heritable phenotypes. Herein we conducted a genetic and an epigenetic study (using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) markers, respectively), accompanied by phenotypic traits correlation analysis in sweet cherry gene pools. The mean genetic diversity was greater than the epigenetic diversity (hgen = 0.193; hepi = 0.185), while no significant relationship was found between genetic and epigenetic distance according to a Mantel test. Furthermore, according to correlation analyses our results provided evidence that epigenetic diversity in predefined populations of sweet cherry had a stronger impact on phenotypic traits than their rich genetic diversity.
