Analysis of New Microsatellite Markers Developed From Reported Sequences of Japanese Flounder Paralichthys olivaceus

The expressed sequence tags (ESTs) of Japanese flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus, were selected from GenBank to iden-tify simple sequence repeats (SSRs) or microsatellites.A bioinformatic analysis of 11111 ESTs identified 751 SSR-containing ESTs, including 440 dinucleotide, 254 trinucleotide, 53 tetranucleotide, 95 pentanucleotide and 40 hexanucleotide microsatellites respec-tively.The CA/TG and GA/TC repeats were the most abundant microsatellites.AT-rich types were predominant among trinucleotide and tetranucleotide microsatellites.PCR primers were designed to amplify 10 identified microsatellites loci.The PCR results from eight pairs of primers showed polymorphisms in wild populations.In 30 wild individuals, the mean observed and expected het-erozygosities of these 8 polymorphic SSRs were 0.71 and 0.83 respectively and the average PIC value was 0.8.These microsatellite markers should prove to be a useful addition to the microsatellite markers that are now available for this species.