Introduction.Annona muricata L. is a fruit tree species of tropical origin
whose fruit, the soursop, although having great potential, is not commercially exploited
enough. So there is little information on this species and, in particular, on its germplasm
characterization. Consequently, the purpose of our study was to estimate the genetic variability
between nine soursop accessions using the RAPD marker technique. Materials and
methods. By means of RAPD analysis, using the Jaccard's coefficient, a similarity matrix was
generated between nine accessions, seven of them collected in Venezuela and two in Brazil.
With these, a phenogram was obtained using UPGMA clustering analysis. The ordering of the
accessions was also achieved by means of a principal component analysis. Results. Seventeen
RAPD fragments were obtained, of which 14 were polymorphic. Average similarity was
0.5333, and ranged from 0.2627 to 1.000. The phenogram identified two groups, equal to
principal coordinates analysis. The Venezuelan accessions showed more variability when
compared with the Brazilian ones (Jaccard's coefficient of 0.5038 and 0.5442, respectively).
Discussion. Compared with other studies on various fruit trees, that carried out here on
A. muricata underlined a great genetic variability. The situation is thus favorable to undertake
in Venezuela a breeding program in this still under-exploited fruit species.