1996 Volume 62 Issue 4 Pages 552-555
Dinucleotide repeat polymorphisms are widely used as markers for genetic analysis in mammalian genomes because of their abundance and high variability among individuals. We have previously isolated informative markers for genetic studies of rainbow trout. In fisheries science, many species need to be analyzed. Therefore, heterologous applications of DNA markers designed in one species can be useful. The sequences flanking a dinucleotide repeat are often conserved among closely related species. We thus wanted to determine whether DNA markers isolated from the rainbow trout genome could be used to detect dinucleotide repeat polymorphisms in five other species of salmonid. Five sets of primer pairs that flank rainbow trout microsatellites and that produced polymorphic PCR products, were tested with template DNA from five species. Specific PCR products were obtained in all cases. Four out of five DNA markers could detect polymorphism in all speciesand all five DNA markers could detect polymorphism in at least one species. In many cases, these markers showed large numbers of alleles and high heterozygosity values in other salmonids such as rainbow trout. Our results show that DNA markers isolated from rainbow trout are also useful in other salmonids for fisheries sciences such as population studies and genetic linkage analysis.
