Isolation and inheritance of novel microsatellites in chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tschawytscha)

We describe the isolation, PCR amplification, and characterization of 10 ne w microsatellite loci (Ots-1-Ots-10) fdr the federally protected chinook sa lmon (Oncorhynchus tschawytscha), We investigate the inheritance and linkag e of these loci as well as a previously published locus, One mu 13, in fami lies obtained from artificial crosses, Mendelian transmission is confirmed for 76 of 80 segregations observed, Of the four deviations, two appear to h ave resulted from gametic segregation distortion. The other two provide evi dence for the existence of at least one null allele, We also identify "drop out" of large alleles in these two families owing to competitive PCR ampli fication of smaller alleles, There is no evidence for linkage between any p air of loci, One mutation observed at Ots-2 is reported and confirmed by DN A sequencing, We estimate the mutation rate at this locus to be 6.5 x 10(-4 ) (95% confidence interval 3.6 x 10(-3) to 1.6 x 10(-4), respectively). Cha racterizing a mutant allele at Ots-2 offers the first step toward understan ding mutation rates for chinook microsatellites. Owing to their Mendelian i nheritance, these new loci provide reliable markers for high-resolution pop ulation genetics studies of this species.