Development of microsatellite markers in potato and their use in phylogenetic and fingerprinting analyses

Three genomic libraries were constructed using a mixture of DNA from Solanu m phureja Juz. & Buk., and S. chacoense Bitt. Two of the libraries were enr iched for ATT and GT repeats (a 27-fold enrichment was achieved). In total, 3500 clones of the conventional library, 1000 of the library enriched for ATT, and 12 000 of the one enriched for GT were screened with five differen t repeat motifs, and a total of 18 primer pairs was obtained. Another group of 12 primer pairs was obtained from the SSR-containing sequences in the p ublic databases (18 SSR-containing sequences were utilized). From among 30 newly developed primer pairs, 12 previously published ones, and 12 pairs de veloped for tomato, 7 were used to identify 12 different potato cultivars a nd introductions, and 12 were used to study phylogenetic distance among sev en wild and cultivated potato species. Two SSR markers were sufficient to d iscriminate the 12 cultivars. The mean number of alleles per polymorphic lo cus was 5 for the 12 cultivars and 4.5 for the seven species. The results o btained in this study confirm those achieved in similar studies in other pl ant species regarding the abundance and use of SSR markers in identifying s pecies and cultivars.