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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Corvallis, Oregon » National Clonal Germplasm Repository » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #257547
Title: Microsatellite markers: valuable in Vaccinium L.

Author
item Bassil, Nahla

Submitted to: International Journal of Fruit Science
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/31/2010
Publication Date: 3/14/2012
Citation: Bassil, N.V. 2012. Microsatellite markers: valuable in Vaccinium L.. International Journal of Fruit Science. 12:288-293. DOI:10.1080/15538362.2011.619438.

Interpretive Summary: The United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Clonal Germplasm Repository (USDA, ARS, NCGR), Corvallis, OR, maintains a collection of blueberry that contains > 1700 genotypes from 33 countries. The mission of the NCGR is to acquire, preserve, evaluate, document, and freely distribute crop germplasm. Short pieces of DNA called microsatellites [syn. simple sequence repeat (SSR)] are valuable markers in plants because they can generate a unique profile that is used to identify plants. Microsatellite markers can also be used for other genetic studies. The NCGR Genetics Lab was the first to develop 49 such SSRs from the blueberry cultivar Bluecrop. This article reviews the uses of these SSR markers for fingerpinting blueberry, cranberry and ohelo berry; evaluating genetic diversity of wild and cultivated blueberry; populating blueberry genetic maps;and supplying a source of useful markers in 22 different species of in blueberry and related fruit crops.

Technical Abstract: The United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Clonal Germplasm Repository (USDA, ARS, NCGR), Corvallis, OR, maintains a collection of Vaccinium L. that contains > 1700 accessions representing 66 species from 33 countries. The mission of the NCGR is to acquire, preserve, evaluate, document, and freely distribute crop germplasm. Microsatellite [syn. simple sequence repeat (SSR)] markers provide a unique fingerprint for identifying germplasm accessions and are useful for genetic diversity analysis and in saturating genetic maps. The NCGR Genetics Lab was the first to develop 39 SSR primer pairs from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) and 10 SSR primer pairs from a genomic microsatellite-enriched library of ‘Bluecrop’. SSR markers from these 49 primer pairs were identified for providing unique fingerprints for blueberry, cranberry and ohelo berry; evaluating genetic diversity of wild and cultivated blueberry and southern highbush blueberry cultivars; assessing the effect of wide hybridization on genetic diversity and heterozygosity of the cultivated blueberry; populating the diploid Fl #10 (Fla4B x W85-20) x W85-23 and the tetraploid ‘Draper’ x ‘Jewel’ linkage maps; supplying a source of useful markers in 22 species representing nine Vaccinium sections; and use in population genetic analyses in diploid Vaccinium section Myrtillus taxa such as V. calycinum, V. reticulatum, V. scoparium and V. praestans. Over 450 SSR primer pairs were recently designed from newly generated blueberry ESTs as part of a Specialty Crop Research Initiative project to develop genomic tools for blueberry, and will provide a valuable resource for the Vaccinium research and breeding community.