We studied the morphological characteristics, nutritional quality, and the bioactive compounds in fruits of two avocado accessions, RN-7 and RN-8, produced in Hainan province, China. Edible and non-edible parts of the fruit (pulp and seed) were compared to evaluate their possible contribution to improve the sustainability of the food and pharmaceutical industries. The basic characteristics evaluated were moisture, ash, total lipid, fatty acid composition, soluble sugars, titratable acid, soluble protein, and minerals. We also measured the concentrations of six types of bioactive compounds; total phenolics, flavonoids, tannin, ascorbic acid, tocopheryl acetate, and carotenoids. Our analyses of the nutritional compositions demonstrated that the pulp of the RN-7 and RN-8 proved to be rich in moisture, total lipid, and soluble protein. The seed, in turn, had higher soluble sugar, titratable acidity, sodium, potassium, calcium, iron, copper, and zinc contents. Other nutritional compositions (ash, magnesium, and manganese) had little differences between the pulp and seed of avocado fruit. With regard to the contents of bioactive compounds, the seed was superior to the pulp in the contents of total phenolics, flavonoids, and tannin. Regarding the concentrations of ascorbic acid, tocopheryl acetate, and total carotenoids, the highest values were found in the pulp. The results of fatty acid compositions displayed that the palmitic, palmitoleic, stearic, oleic, and linoleic acid contents of the pulp were higher than those of the seed, while myristic and arachic acid had higher contents in the seed.

Avocado is an economically important crop and widely cultivated in the tropical and subtropical regions of China, whereas little is known about its genetic diversification. Twenty-six EST-SSR markers were developed based on avocado EST sequences. Molecular characterization was applied to assess the genetic relationships among different accessions. In total, nine gSSRs and nine EST-SSRs were selected to illuminate the genetic relationships within the 92 samples. Diversity parameters associated to the selected markers indicated the relatively low genetic diversity and a certain degree of inbreeding in the 92 avocado accessions. Clustering method and principal coordinate analysis clearly distinguished the accessions in accordance to the botanical races and geographic regions by molecular characterization. Moreover, the botanical race or hybrids of some unknown race accessions from different geographic origins could be determined based on known genotypes in the same cluster.