USAMV-CN, 63/2006 (252-258) ISSN 1454-2382 SIMPLE SEQUENCE REPEAT SSR MARKERS USED IN RUBUS SPECIES FROM ROMANIAN FLORA AND NORTH-EUROPEAN AND NORTH-AMERICAN RUBUS CULTIVARS (RUBUS IDAEUS) Rusu Anda Raluca 1 , D.Pamfil 1 , Julie Graham 2 , Kay Smith 2 , V.A. Bâlteanu 3 ,Gh.Groza 4 , Ioana Bondrea 1 , Bianca Pătraşcu 1 1 Department of Plant Biotechnology, USAMV Cluj-Napoca, mail:andaralu@yahoo.com 2 Genome Dynamics Department, SCRI, Dundee, Scotland DD2 5DA, UK. 3 Faculty of Biotechnology and Animal Husbandry, USAMV Cluj-Napoca 4 Botanical Department, USAMV Cluj-Napoca Keywords: microsatellite primers (SSRs), Rubus, DNA Sequencer, dendrogram Abstract. SSR analysis was performed on 6 species of Rubus from Romanian flora and 20 N- American and N-European cultivars, in order to assess the molecular taxonomic relation between Romanian Rubus species and N-American and N-European Rubus cultivars, to estimate the genetically potential of this material and to identify material for crossing program. Six Rubus Romanian species were identified by botanists based on their morphological characteristics: Rubus caesius, Rubus plicatus, Rubus idaeus, Rubus discolor, Rubus plicatus subsp. opacus and Rubus hirtus. The N-European and N-American Rubus cultivars were provide by SCRI. We used twenty SSR primers pairs fluorescently labeled on the left primer with ABI fluorescent dyes HEX, FAM or TET. The PCR products were prepared according to Macaulay et al.(2001) for analysis on the ABI Prism 377. The reproducibility of the results confirm that SSR markers are very efficient to: 1. to characterize the Rubus species from Romanian spontaneous flora; 2. to characterize the N-American and N-European Rubus cultivars; 3. to compare the Romanian Rubus species with N-American and N-European Rubus cultivars; 4. to accomplish dendrograms based on all results; 5. to develop a crossing program based on all the analysis processed. INTRODUCTION The genus Rubus is one of the most diverse in the plant kingdom with over 500 heterozygous species within 12 subgenera (Jennings 1988). The most commercially important of the domesticated subgenera is Ideobatus (raspberries), which is spread around all five continents. This subgenus contains some 200 species showing considerable differentiation, of which the most commercially important are the European red raspberry and the North American red raspberry. Where Rubus species are cultivated, wild forms of the same species often occur in the surrounding area, particularly in clearings, hedgerows or roadsides. The cultivated and wild forms are potentially able to interact in a number of ways. Cultivars might influence the genetic diversity of wild population through escapes and gene transfer by pollen. Moreover, the wild population are likely to be hosts to horticultural pests and their natural predators and are also a