Development of an EST-SSR marker in Panax ginseng

Abstract

A total of 791 microsatellites (SSRs) were isolated from 7055 Panax ginseng expressed sequence tags (ESTs). According to primer design criteria, 68 primer pairs for EST-SSR were designed. Under an appropriate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system, all EST-SSR primer pairs were screened against genomic DNA of Ji'anchangbo and Fusong'ermaya from Panax ginseng , and 43 EST-SSR primer pairs out of the above 68 resulted in PCR products. Then, all 43 pairs were detected in nine P. ginseng , two Panax quinquefolius and two Acanthopanax senticosus cultivars for polymorphisms, and 26 pairs (60.47%) were found to be polymorphic, accounting for 38.23% of the total number of designed primer pairs. These results demonstrate the possibility of developing EST-SSR markers using P. ginseng ESTs.