Antioxidant properties and structured biodiversity in a diverse set of wild cranberry clones

Abstract

Wild germplasm with elevated antioxidants are a useful resource for using directly and in a breeding program. In a study with 136 wild clones and two cranberry cultivars, phenolic, flavonoid and anthocyanin contents varied 2.79, 2.70 and 17.46 times, respectively. The antioxidant activity ranged from 1.17 ± 0.01 to 2.53 ± 0.05 mg/g and varied 2.16 times. Seventy-five of wild clones and the cultivar Franklin were grouped into five distinct classes by molecular structure analysis using inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR), expressed sequence tag-simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) and EST-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) markers. Grouping with DNA markers did not coincide with that of based on antioxidant properties. Present study indicates that genetic diversity analysis combined with antioxidant properties of wild germplasm play a significant role for conservation and in selecting diverse genotypes for future berry crop improvement.

Keywords: Plant biology.

Fig. 1

Unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA) dendrogram estimating the genetic distance among 75 cranberry clones and the cultivar Franklin (FRA) designated by codes given in Table 1, based on total phenolic, flavonoid and monomeric anthocyanin as well as their antioxidant activity data.

Fig. 2

Estimation of the number of clusters (K) best fitting the data based on STRUCTURE runs with K ranging from 1 to 10. (a) Mean natural logarithm probability over 10 replicates compared to K; (b) measure of ΔK for each K value.

Fig. 3

Distribution of 75 cranberry clones and the cultivar Franklin (FRA) in groups according to STRUCTURE analysis (K = 5), based on 12 ISSR, 10 EST-PCR and 5 EST-SSR primers. The genotypes were represented by vertical bars and each colour is associated to a different group. Genotype identification number is shown on Table 1.