E-microsatellite markers for some naturally occurring Salvia species in the Mediterranean region

Abstract

The genus Salvia L. contains about 1000 species, more than 40 of which are endemic to the Mediterranean region. Species boundaries and classifications of this genus have been mainly conducted based on morphological and anatomical characteristics. Although genomic and genic microsatellites are commonly used in a variety of genetic studies in many plant and animal species, their use has been limited in Salvia species. This research was undertaken to study microsatellite contents of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) and develop a new set of expressed-microsatellite (e-microsatellite) markers using the GenBank databases. In in silico studies of the research, microsatellites were identified and e-microsatellite primer pairs flanking the repeats were designed. In in vitro studies of the present work, e-microsatellite primer pairs were used to amplify genomic DNA samples of different Salvia species naturally occurring in the Mediterranean region of Turkey. The results indicated that ESTs of related species deposited in GenBank were reliable sources for the development of e-microsatellite markers. The results of this study also indicated that cross-transferability of e-microsatellite markers decreased as the evolutionary distance among the tested Salvia species increased. E-microsatellite loci presented in this work could be very useful for measuring genetic diversity, gene flow, and species identification studies in the genus Salvia.