Host: The Japanese Forestry Society
We developed SSR (Simple Sequence Repeats) markers in Zelkova serrata for purposes of tree breeding and genetic resources conservation of the specie. An (AC)n enriched genomic library of Z. serrata was constructed by the biotin/streptavidin capture technique. One hundred and twelve positive clones were sequenced, and 36 out of 112 clones were unsuitable for primer design because SSR region was located at marginal region of the sequences. For 40 out of the 76 remaining clones, primer sets were designed. Sixteen out of the 40 primer sets produced the expected DNA fragments. In this study, as to five out of 16 developed SSR markers, genetic polymorphisms revealed by the markers were characterized using a set of Z. serrata DNA samples obtained from 21 clones. The number of alleles per locus (Na) ranged from 5 to 11, and the average was 8.8. The effective number of alleles per locus (ne) ranged from 2.8 to 5.5 and the average was 4.7. Somewhat larger Na/ne ratio indicated that few alleles dominated in their allele frequency distributions. The expected heterozygosity (He) ranged from 0.66 to 0.84 and the average was 0.79, and showed high polymorphism of these markers. The five SSR markers was applied for clone identification of 21 Z. serrata clones, and the 21 clones were completely discriminated by the genotype information of the five markers, indicating the developed SSR markers have a high potential for clone identification, which is necessary for efficient progress of tree breeding program of the species.
