Genetic Diversity of Hippophae rhamnoides Varieties with Different Fruit Characteristics

Hippophae rhamnoides is a valuable crop whose fruits are rich in bioactive compounds with health benefits. To date, there is a lack of genetic data for varieties of sea buckthorn. This fact hinders the identification of genetic determinants of valuable traits and limits the efficiency of breeding. In the present study, we analyzed a representative set of 55 valuable H. rhamnoides varieties of Russian breeding with different fruit characteristics and diverse lineages. Whole-genome sequencing was performed on the Illumina platform and at least 25x genome coverage was obtained for each accession. Based on the sequencing data, DNA polymorphisms were identified in genome regions corresponding to genes. These polymorphisms were used to evaluate the genetic relationships of the studied sea buckthorn varieties. We revealed genetically distinct groups of accessions that mostly corresponded to the lineages of the genotypes. Our data are important for assessing the effect of selection on sea buckthorn diversity and for evaluating the genetic relationship of different varieties, which is useful for breeders when selecting parental forms for crosses. The obtained information on DNA polymorphisms is also necessary to study the diversity of genes, including those that may determine valuable sea buckthorn traits, including fruit characteristics. Thus, our data can benefit both basic and applied research on sea buckthorn.