A multiplex microsatellite PCR method for evaluating genetic diversity in grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus)

Abstract

Grass carp is one of the most important cultured fishes all over the world. The genetic diversity of grass carp plays an important role whatever in selective breeding progress or ecological conservation purposes. However, some genetic diversity researches were not accuracy and cannot be compared with each other due to different molecular markers, sample size and detection methods. In this study, we constructed five multiplex PCR assays contained 20 microsatellites with highly polymorphism and heterozygosity for evaluating genetic information of grass carp. We used nine cultured populations consisting of 507 individuals to detect stability of the five multiplex PCR assays. The results showed that the number of alleles (Na), effective number of alleles (Ne), observed heterozygosity (Ho), expected heterozygosity (He) and polymorphism information content (PIC) of the 20 microsatellite loci were relative high compared with the genetic diversity parameters of microsatellite loci developed by other researchers. Six loci were significantly deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P < 0.01). And with exception of the Shaoguan, Indian and Nepal cultured population, all other cultured populations showed very high genetic diversity. Through the test of grass carp populations, we developed an effective and accurate multiplex SSR-PCR assays that can be as statistical powerful tool for detecting genetic information of grass carp.