Transferability of EST-Microsatellite Markers to some Labiatae Genera

In recent years, molecular markers have been used in identification and differentiation of chemical compositions in some aromatic species [1,2,3]. Among molecular markers, SSRs or microsatellites are the marker of choice, however, the development of microsatellite markers is often a laborious and costly process since the construction of a DNA library and screening of the library with probes corresponding to the repetitive sequences required. Fortunately after the discovery of microsatellites in ESTs, ESTs became an important source for development of microsatellite markers [4]. Many studies indicated that unlike genomic microsatellites, genic ones could amplify genomic regions of related genera [5,6]. Based on these findings this study developed one hundred microsatellite primer pairs using a total of 13641 ESTs from Origanum, Salvia, Stenogyne and Thymus species. A total of 20 primer pairs obtained from Origanum ESTs were used to investigate transferability of EST based microsatellites to Salvia, Sideritis, Melissa, Teucrium, Rosmarinus, Thymus, Pholomis and Capsicum. All 20 primer pairs could amplify genomic DNA of Origanum. Three of the 20 microsatellite primer pairs were failed to amplify genomic DNAs of the species tested. Analyses indicated that the level of transferability of Origanum EST microsatellite markers were considerable higher in species belonging to Labiatae genera while a few markers could be transferable to Capsicum. In many cases amplified products were high in molecular mass, however, the use of CAPS-microsatellite technique described in [6] could be used on these microsatellites for detection of polymorphisms.

Acknowledgement: This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey.

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