Abstract
Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) is a major fiber and oil yielding crop grown in northeastern China. Identification of flax molecular markers is a key step toward improving flax yield and quality via marker-assisted breeding. Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, which are based on genomic structural variation, are considered the most valuable type of genetic marker for this purpose. In this study, we screened 1574 microsatellites from Linum usitatissimum L. obtained using reduced representation genome sequencing (RRGS) to systematically identify SSR markers. The resulting set of microsatellites consisted mainly of trinucleotide (56.10%) and dinucleotide (35.23%) repeats, with each motif consisting of 5–8 repeats. We then evaluated marker sensitivity and specificity based on samples of 48 flax isolates obtained from northeastern China. Using the new SSR panel, the results demonstrated that fiber flax and oilseed flax varieties clustered into two well separated groups. The novel SSR markers developed in this study show potential value for selection of varieties for use in flax breeding programs.
Highlights
Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) is a major fiber and oil crop grown in northeastern China
A total of 9.87 Mb reads were obtained with mapped reads reaching 78.14% and normal digestion ratio reaching 97.49%
This study demonstrates that molecular markers, especially Simple sequence repeat (SSR), are valuable because they can distinguish between different germplasm within a single species (SotoCerda et al, 2011b)
Summary
Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) is a major fiber and oil crop grown in northeastern China. Because markerassisted selection (MAS) has helped to achieve similar goals efficiently for other crops, MAS should facilitate marker-assisted breeding of flax, as well as for flax germplasm identification. Several molecular markers has been identified in flax using isozyme analysis (Krulickova et al, 2002; Yurenkova et al, 2005), RAPD (Fu, 2006), AFLP (Spielmeyer et al, 1998; Everaert et al, 2001), and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) analysis (Wiesner and Wiesnerová, 2003, 2004; Rajwade et al, 2010). A better approach utilizing simple sequence repeats (SSRs), or microsatellite DNA, has been developed. The abundance, highly polymorphic nature, heritability, distribution, reproducibility and generally co-dominant nature of SSR markers make them highly suitable for Development of SSR Markers in Flax
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