DEVELOPMENT OF 32 EST-SSR MARKERS FOR ABIES FIRMA (PINACEAE) AND THEIR TRANSFERABILITY TO RELATED SPECIES

Premise of the study: We developed simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) for Abies firma, a conifer endemic in Japan, to facilitate evaluation of the population genetic structure in this species. Methods and Results: We designed primers for 153 EST-SSRs identified from 486 322 ESTs from A. sachalinensis ESTs, and tested 96 of them for PCR amplification. Thirty-two primers provided clear amplification, and 14 of those 32 displayed clear polymorphic patterns in multiple populations of A. firma and in two closely related species. The number of alleles per locus and mean expected heterozygosity ranged from one to six and 0 to 0.476, respectively. Conclusions: The EST-SSR markers developed in this study may be useful for phylogeography and population genetic studies of A. firma. Successful amplifications were obtained for two other Abies species, suggesting that these markers may also be useful for similar applications in other fir species.