Development of fifty-one novel EST-SSR loci for use in rockfish (genus Sebastes)

Abstract

We mined expressed sequence tag libraries from three species of rockfish (Sebastes caurinus, S. goodei, and S. rastrelliger) for microsatellites. A total of 111 novel sequences with repetitive elements were isolated and we were able to successfully amplify 51 of these in five different rockfish species. Population level surveys for two species (S. flavidus and S. melanops) were conducted with these 51 loci. Twelve loci showed deviations from Hardy- Weinberg equilibrium, indicating the presence of null alleles or duplicated loci. Eleven of the 51 loci annotated to the SWISSPROT database. This suite of loci will prove useful in current and ongoing conservation and genomic studies of rockfish. © The Author(s) 2011.