Development and utility of EST-SSR markers in Ulva prolifera of the South Yellow Sea

Ulva species can grow rapidly in nutrient-rich habitats causing green tides and marine fouling. A more complete understanding of the reasons behind these outbreaks is urgently required. Accordingly, this study attempts to use microsatellite markers based expressed sequence tag（EST） to analyze the genetic variation of several Ulva prolifera populations in the South Yellow Sea of China. Two hundred and thirty-eight SSRs were identified from 8 179 unique ESTs（6 203 newly sequenced and 1 976 downloaded from NCBI database） and 37 primer pairs were successfully designed according to the ESTs; 11 pairs were selected to detect the genetic diversity and relationship of 69 attached U. prolifera samples and 13 free-floating samples collected from coastal and off-coast areas of the South Yellow Sea. The results of cross-species transferability showed that six of the 11 EST-SSR primers could give good amplification in other five Ulva species and the average allele number was 4.67. Genetic variation analysis indicated that all 82 U. prolifera samples were clearly divided and most samples collected from the same site clustered together as a group in the dendrogram tree produced by unweighted pair-group mean analysis（UPGMA） method and the cluster results showed some consistency with the geographical origins. In addition, 13 free-floating samples（except HT-001-2） were grouped as a single clade separated from the attached samples.

Determination of the genetic diversity of vegetable soybean [Glycine max(L.) Merr.] using EST-SSR markers

The development of expressed sequence tag-derived simple sequence repeats(EST-SSRs) provided a useful tool for investigating plant genetic diversity.In the present study,22 polymorphic EST-SSRs from grain soybean were identified and used to assess the genetic diversity in 48 vegetable soybean accessions.Among the 22 EST-SSR loci,tri-nucleotides were the most abundant repeats,accounting for 50.00% of the total motifs.GAA was the most common motif among tri-nucleotide repeats,with a frequency of 18.18%.Polymorphic analysis identified a total of 71 alleles,with an average of 3.23 per locus.The polymorphism information content(PIC) values ranged from 0.144 to 0.630,with a mean of 0.386.Observed heterozygosity(H o) values varied from 0.0196 to 1.0000,with an average of 0.6092,while the expected heterozygosity(H e) values ranged from 0.1502 to 0.6840,with a mean value of 0.4616.Principal coordinate analysis and phylogenetic tree analysis indicated that the accessions could be assigned to different groups based to a large extent on their geographic distribution,and most accessions from China were clustered into the same groups.These results suggest that Chinese vegetable soybean accessions have a narrow genetic base.The results of this study indicate that EST-SSRs from grain soybean have high transferability to vegetable soybean,and that these new markers would be helpful in taxonomy,molecular breeding,and comparative mapping studies of vegetable soybean in the future.

微卫星DNA标记开发技术进展及其在经济植物研究中的应用

微卫星分子标记技术被广泛应用于分子生物学研究中,具有多态性高、重复性好、共显性表达、杂合度高等特点,在种群遗传多样性、遗传图谱构建等领域发挥不可替代的作用。近年来,随着新一代高通量测序技术的进一步成熟,简单重复序列(simple sequence repeat,SSR)标记的开发技术与应用得到了进一步的发展。现主要对基于高通量测序的微卫星分子标记最新开发技术进行介绍,并从遗传多样性分析、遗传图谱构建、品种鉴定及分子辅助育种等方面,总结近年来SSR标记技术在经济植物研究中的最新应用,最后对SSR技术的应用前景进行展望,以期为利用微卫星技术进行经济植物研究提供参考。