Searching for molecular markers linked to male sterility and self-compatibility in apricot

In apricot, there are two traits related to flower biology that can be a li mitation for the breeder: self-incompatibility and male sterility. Fully ma ture trees are needed to determine both phenotypes. Molecular biology techn iques may provide a potential tool for increasing selection efficiency by m eans of marker-assisted selection. In this study, randomly amplified polymo rphic DNA markers combined with bulked segregant analysis have been used to search for markers linked to these traits. A screening of 228 primers resu lted in a marker linked to male-fertility (M4-950). No markers linked to S alleles were obtained. A second approach consisted of the screening of prim ers in a subset of seedlings and resulted in three markers linked to male-f ertility and two markers linked to the Sc allele. These markers may allow a n earlier determination of the phenotype in progenies segregating for these traits.