Microsatellite Markers in Plants and Insects. Part I: Applications of Biotechnology

Abstract

Biotechnology is integral to the application of robust, high through-put detection of species-specific and species or genus-transferred microsatellites, or simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. These short, tandemly repeated stretches of DNA of variable motifs and lengths are relatively evenly distributed throughout eukaryotic nuclear, chloroplasts, and mitochondrial genomes. Microsatellites are inherited as Mendelian co-dominant markers that provide insights into non-Mendelian inheritance such as microsatellite evolution, replication, repair, recombination, and mutation. These characteristics have made microsatellites the genetic marker of choice for most technologicallydriven applications in plant and insect genetic studies such as mapping, marker-assisted selection (MAS), and genetic diversity studies. MAS and linkage mapping analyses has greatly assisted breeding programs through the discovery and isolation of many important agronomic genes that underlie respective phenotypes. Linkage maps and genome sequences have provided comparative genomic insights in plants and insects regarding microsatellite distribution, occurrence, and adaptive phenotypic evolution. Furthermore, genomic synteny and SSR sequence conservation have not only provided maximum annotated information for model plants and insects, but have demonstrated cross-species/genera transferability, which is indicative of long evolutionary history. It is the aim of this paper, therefore, to review biotechnology platforms and applications that have made SSR markers so useful as well as to discuss the impact of SSR transferability across species and/or genera.