Development and transferability of EST-SSR and transferability of genomic SSR markers for genetic diversity assessment of Doritis

Doritis is a wild terrestrial orchid, originated in the Northeastern part of Thailand. With its good floral structure and very diverse color, it has high potential to develop into commercial ornamental plant or to use as a hybridizer with other orchid species. Unfortunately it has not been studied in detail for its potential of development. In this study we developed SSR markers from EST database and examined the transferability of genomic SSR markers from other orchids in Doritis. 8009 ESTs belonged to family Orchidaceae were collected and analyzed for microsatellite. A total of 195 EST-SSR were identified. Twenty-three EST-SSR and seven genomic SSR primers (from Dendrobium and Serapias) were used for genetic diversity assessment of Doritis germplasm. 142 alleles were generated in which, 92 alleles (64.8%) showed polymorphism among 30 Doritis accessions (Doritis regnieriana, Doritis pulcherrima and D. pulcherrima var. buyssoniana.). The polymorphic information content (PIC) average at 0.6076 and ranged from 0.1244 to 0.8439. The phylogenetic tree based on UPGMA showed three major clades based on their taxonomy indicating that SSR markers developed in this study can be used for identification, conservation and selection of appropriate parents for the Doritis hybrid production in future. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.