A new set of microsatellite markers for Fragaria species and their application in linkage analysis

Summary

This study reports the development of 68 new microsatellite markers. Of these, 45 were obtained, together with 20 others already published, from an AC-enriched genomic library of the wild strawberry Fragaria vesca. The 68 markers were tested for transportability to the cultivated strawberry F. ananassa ‘Miss’ and 83% gave positive amplifications. Twenty pairs of primers were selected and tested for their transportability to 16 Fragaria taxa and eight species of Rosaceae (peach, almond, apricot, European and Sino-Japanese plums, sweet and sour cherry, apple). The average proportion of primers amplifying loci in Fragaria was 69%, while the transportability to Rosaceae was very low and resulted in null amplification for 80% of the primer pairs. In addition, 23 microsatellite markers were developed from F. ananassa ‘expressed sequence tags’ databases. A total of 141 primer pairs from these and published primers, were tested for polymorphism in the two parents (91.333.2 and ‘Snovit’; both belonging to F. vesca) of a full sib population of 46 individuals. Fifty-eight percent of the primers were discarded because they were monomorphic, or were difficult to interpret, or their allelic conformation was not useful for mapping. The segregation of 73 primers was tested in the progeny and a partial map of the female parent was constructed, based on the segregation of 66 useful markers that were ordered into eight linkage groups of which four had from seven to 14 markers.