S02 - Session O6 - MUNQ and PUNQ - A European and international apple and pear germplasm coding system

Authors: Charles-Eric Durel *, Caroline Denancé, Hélène Muranty, Marc Lateur, Matt Ordidge

The use of harmonized microsatellite and single nucleotide polymorphism markers through national, European and private projects and within the European Cooperative Program on Plant Genetic Resources has allowed numerous international apple and pear germplasm collections for molecular characterization. We will present the recent developments of assigning a unique genotype code for all accessions sharing the same marker profile. Malus UNiQue genotype codes (MUNQ) have been proposed in Muranty et al. (2020) as an extension of the codes first described in Urrestarazu et al . (2016). A first large dataset is publicly available ( https://doi.org/doi:10.15454/HKGMAS ) and regularly updated. The same coding system is under development for pear with the Pyrus UNiQue genotype codes (PUNQ). MUNQ and PUNQ codes are extremely useful for germplasm managers to compare their collections with others. They give information about duplication/redundancy, original uniqueness, or ploidy status and thereby help managers organize the material, e.g. ensuring duplication strategies internally and at national/international levels. MUNQ and PUNQ codes also help target the higher-density genotyping and sequencing effort at the global level. They allow genotypic data generated in one country to be efficiently used by others. We will discuss the limitations and perspectives of this international apple and pear germplasm coding system.