Development of EST-SSR primers and their practicability test for Laminaria

Laminaria (Saccharina) is one of the economic important seaweeds.Through sequence analysis of 4 099 ESTs from Laminaria (971 were generated from our own cDNA laboratories and 3 128 were downloaded from updated EST databases) with SSRIT software,two hundred and fifty-four SSRs in 206 ESTs were found.From the 254 SSRs,sixty-three SSR primer-pairs were designed. In order to test their practicability, the 63 primer-pairs were tested in commonly used SSR reaction conditions using 12 Laminara DNA samples as templates. The results show that 23 SSR primer-pairs gave good amplification patterns on most (more than 80%) of the 12 Laminara DNA templates. Genetic diversity study of 12 Laminaria lines,which were widely used in breeding and economic cultivation in China,was performed based on the obtained SSR data.